Peoria Library Youth Star Party – June 13, 2019 @ 8:00 PM – The Peoria Library Youth Star Party was held at the Main Peoria library. There was a good turn out… 40 to 50 attendees and at least 5 club telescopes were available to look through. The Star party was conveniently held atop the parking garage roof. Ron and Beth O. set up some flashy,
informative displays to enhance the event and advertise our Club. We are looking forward to another such party this Fall.
Speaker: Dr. Steve Ruff – ASU School of Earth & Space Exploration. A planetary geologist with a focus on the mineralogy of Mars determined via infrared spectroscopy.
Topic: “Updates from the Surface of Mars”. Dr. Ruff discussed recent happenings at the surface of Mars concerning rovers and landers, and a look at the future of Mars exploration. Dr Ruff also reported on the final months of the Opportunity rover’s nearly 15 year mission; the recent activities of the Curiosity rover; the new Insight lander mission; and the upcoming Mars 2020 rover mission.
“New Horizon Mission Update”
Speaker – Dr. Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ. Dr. Grundy is a co-investigator on NASA’s New Horizon Mission which did the Pluto fly-by and just arrived at Ultima Thule (dumbbell looking asteroid) in the Outer asteroid belt on New Years day 2019. Grundy does spectroscopic, thermal, and imaging observations of outer Solar System bodies using numerous large ground- and space-based telescopes including Hubble, Spitzer, Herschel, Keck, Gemini, VLT, DCT, IRTF, and MMT.
ASU Meteorite Lab
The WVAC visited the ASU meteorite lab for the second time, where Dr. Wadhwa and his staff Rebecca Davis, Dr. Laurence Garvie and Melissa Morris provided a wonderful tour of the meteorite vault. The climate controlled vault contains meteorites from around the world consisting of all type of elements from iron to diamonds. Ongoing studies of these meteorites are providing an amazing insight into how the universe was formed.
“Celestial (Stellar) Navigation” Speaker – Allen Edwards
Member/Speaker Allen Edwards spoke on the continuing use of stellar navigation as applied to Space Navigation – A variation on terrestrial celestial navigation was used to help orient the Apollo spacecraft en route to and from the Moon. To this day, space missions such as the Mars Exploration Rover use star trackers to determine the attitude of the spacecraft. Allen presented an INS unit and Sextant for show and tell experience. About the speaker – Club member Allen has a BSEE degree from Univ. of Illionois and a MBA from the Univ. ofPhoenix. He is president of the StellarNav LLC.