Annual Meeting
Saturday, April 1, 2023, 7:00 pm
Annual Meeting
Saturday, April 1 at Seagrave Observatory
In-person and on Zoom (Contact Linda Bergemann (lbergemann@aol.com) for the Zoom link
After four months away, we return to Seagrave for our Annual Meeting and Election of Officers, followed by two short presentations by one of our members.
Facilities will open at 6 PM for socializing before the meeting. At 7 PM, we will begin our business meeting, followed by our speaker.
Business
- Reports
- Election of Officers
- Voting on Tommy Tse as Honorary Member
- For the Good of the Organization
Stephen LaFlamme held up a pair of binoculars during the summer of ’78 and “discovered” the crescent shape of Venus. This spectacle led to his lifelong passion for backyard astronomy. Reaching the point in high school where a career path had to be chosen, Stephen wanted to pursue astronomy. His Dad, who was paying for college, wanted him to be a pharmacist. So, while consuming his days counting pills for Walgreens, he spent his nights under the constellations with wonder. He designed and built a backyard dome some 25 years ago. Astrophotography rose to the forefront as local light pollution grew worse each year. Artificial light glow can be subtracted by software. A sampling of this work can be found under Universefromthebackyard on Facebook or Instagram. Stephen has many tales to share about owning meteorites, and a piece of the moon. His day spent with John Dobson. Being ‘visited’ by his deceased astronomy mentor one night at his observatory. And an amusing anecdote about a failed Astronomy Club start-up. Having retired three years ago and with no alarm clock to set, Stephen now takes full advantage of every opportunity to study the stars.
Stephen will provide us with two short presentations. First, he will review a recent project where he was able to locate and take images of the James Webb Space Telescope from his backyard as it goes about its business nearly one million miles from earth. Second, he will introduce a new vocabulary word, pareidolia, and it’s longtime role in visual astronomy.
