	Sun	Moon
Rise	6:00	14:26		10.6d
Set	19:31	03:59	81.6%

June 2013

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President's Message June 2013

By Ed Haskell

Your feedback last year about changing the meeting day during the summer months was very strongly in favor, so we are going to do it again. Since you may have missed the announcement of the summer meeting dates and programs I will recap that information for you:

June 8 (Saturday) at Seagrave Memorial Observatory. The meeting will commence with a pot luck supper at 6:00pm. Our June speaker will be David Gow, who did the restoration work on Ladd Observatory's clock drive system. All aspects of the conservation will be presented: assessment, working with the Curatorial staff, treatment plan, restoration versus conservation, documentation, and maintenance schedule will be discussed and illustrated.

July 13 (Saturday) at Seagrave Memorial Observatory. Coffee and refreshments at 7pm, presentation at 7:30pm. Prof. Greg Tucker, Dept of Physics, Brown University: "Astronomy Above the Antarctic". Flying telescopes on high altitude balloons from the Antarctic provides relatively low-cost access to a space-like environment. This talk will describe two experiments which have been developed to answer questions about what happened during the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang to how stars form.

August 3 (Saturday) at Seagrave Memorial Observatory. Coffee and refreshments at 7pm, Talks at 7:30pm. The program for the August meeting will consist of short presentations by members of Skyscrapers. If anyone would like to give a talk, please contact Kathy Siok or Bob Horton.

An important element of the rationale for these changes during summer is to encourage a more relaxed environment for member socialization and to promote more use of the instruments after the meetings. This seemed to work very well last summer and I was encouraged to see that as soon as we returned to Seagrave for the April and May meetings there was a resumption of the collegial atmosphere and lingering for observing late into the night.

Remember that the June meeting starts with a pot luck dinner. Make your signature delicacy and come out for socialization, and bring your telescope too.

Thanks for all you do for Skyscrapers.

Ed Haskell, President

June 8: Monthly Meeting

Restoration of the George N. Saegmuller Telescope Clock Drive at The Ladd Observatory

David Gow

David Gow will present all aspects of the conservation: assessment, working with the Curatorial staff, treatment plan, restoration versus conservation, documentation, and maintenance schedule will be discussed and illustrated.

David was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He followed his father and brother by serving a five-year apprenticeship in traditional woodworking. After getting married and some interesting diversions, a persistent desire to become involved in clocks and watches was finally realized.

The first few years were a learning curve, which culminated in specializing in 18^th and 19^th century clock restoration. David owns a nicely-equipped workshop in Shrewsbury, MA. For the past seventeen years he has been the Conservator at the Willard House and Clock Museum in Grafton, MA. Recent restoration work has included two historic clocks in the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., a London tall-case marquetry clock by John Sweeby, circa 1690, an astronomical clock having two pendulums, made by Hezekiah Conant, for a college in New England, and finally, the restoration of the telescope clock drive at the Ladd Observatory in Providence, RI.

He has two adult sons. Along with his wife Barbara, they have just completed a six month trip to the Bahamas, surviving Hurricane Sandy aboard their thirty-seven foot sailboat, Podjo.