Minutes of the monthly meeting of Sangamon Astronomical Society held October 20th, 2005 at 7:00 PM at Morgan Stanley.

The members of the Board of Directors are:

Larry Hardy
Mike Robertson
Ray Watt
Darren Hulskotter
Glenn Cunningham

Updates

SAS held its fourth annual Illinois Dark Skies Star Party 2005 at the Jim Edgar State Park on Oct 6th - 9th. It was a great event with good viewing conditions. We had about 110 people from all over the midwest. We had many people write in with compliments after the event.

SAS needs to know about all members intensions of becoming a board member by next months meeting. An email will be sent out to all members.

Next months discussion topic is "Star Hopping"

Treasury Report:   Darren handed out the latest numbers.

Planning and Grants:  No Report.

Observing Program:  No Report.

Light Pollution Committee: No Report.

Public and Private Events: There will be a Mars Public Viewing Event on November 5th at Centennial Park in Springfield. SAS members are asked to be on site at 5pm. The public is invited out at 6pm.

Star Party: We will be emailing all attendees of the star party a survey to see if there are any things we can improve next year.

Presentation

Tonights discussion topic was "Mathematics as it applies to ametuer astronomy". Fred Pilcher gave a good talk on Parallaxing. Tony Hopp gave a good matematical example of calculating time dilation and ones increasing mass as one approaches the speed of light.

The meeting was adjourned at 9pm.