OAS Executive Committee 

President- Dave Dunn, Ph. (801) 544-7705

Vice Pres- Lee Priest, Ph. (801) 479-5803

Secretary- Bob Tillotson, Ph. (801) 773-8106

Treasurer- Doug Say, (801) 731-7324

NO REGULAR MEETING IN AUGUST

As announced in last month's Star Diagonal, a regular meeting of the Ogden Astronomical Society will not be held at the Ott Planetarium in August, 2001. Rather, the Monte Cristo star party/camp out will take the place of the meeting. The July Monte event was a fine success. All nights were clear. See the attached review of July's event for details.

POWDER MOUNTAIN STAR PARTY

IS SET FOR AUGUST

OAS members will be treated to the clear and "dark" skies of Powder Ridge at the Powder Mountain Ski resort this coming Saturday August 25^th. Dr. Sohl has arranged for the members to assemble their equipment at the site designated for Weber State University at Powder Mountain.

For details on how to get there contact Dr. Sohl or one of your Executive Committee members.

FINAL MONTE CRISTO STAR PARTY IN 2001 IS SET FOR AUGUST 17-18

OAS members and friends can come together one last time in 2001 at the 9000 foot elevation level in the Cache-Wasatch National Forest east of Ogden. This Monte event is set for the weekend of August 17 through 18. Pot Luck dinners are again planned for both nights. If this is anything like last month's star party, you won't leave the mountain disappointed.

It is always best to come early in order to secure a camp site around loop "E" adjacent to the viewing meadow. However, fine camp sites are usually available throughout the campground even if you arrive a little late.

For more detail, contact one of your Executive Committee members.

THE JULY MONTE CRISTO WAS "CLEAR"

Our Monte Cristo star party for July was a lot of fun. Some of us arrived on Wednesday night. We had a couple of good hours of observing that night.

Figure 1 - Friday at Monte Cristo was crowded. There were in excess of 30 telescopes, of all types, in the meadow.

On Thursday night we spent several hours looking at galaxies with Weber State University's PAWS (Physics at Weber State) 25 inch telescope. We had Dr. John hopping from galaxy to galaxy. M51 was real nice. Spiral structure was easily seen. We could see the spiral arms and even clumps of stars in the arms.

Figure 2 - Cliff Peterson was operating his 10 inch LX200 both night and day. He was always surrounded by camp visitors, showing them Venus, Jupiter and Saturn in broad daylight.

On Friday night we had a large potluck dinner. After dinner, and some serenading by Wayne Sumner, we retired to the meadow for some viewing. There must have been thirty astronomers in our the meadow. The telescopes were going down the hill on both sides. It was fun to look in some of the other telescopes and to point BOB at some of the same galaxies as we had looked at the night before in PAWS. We also spent some time looking at the comet (LINEAR). On Saturday night, we only had about 10 astronomers left.

Figure 3 - Dr. Sohl (left) is considering major changes to PAWS. John exchanged size reduction ideas with Doug Say, the designer of the club's 18.5 inch, BOB.

Figure 4 - Doug Say described some of the weight reducing features of BOB to Dr. Sohl. The 18.5 inch ‘scope can easily be moved, assembled and disassembled by one person.

We enjoyed another night of viewing until the wind kicked up.

I hope that everyone can make it out to the August Monte Star Party. It is real fun to get out of the city and be able to see all of the dim Nebulas and Galaxies that you can see from a really dark location.

Dave Dunn

Photographs are by Bob T.

COMET LINEAR FROM MONTE

CCD Imaging from Dale Hooper

This is an image of Comet Linear, taken at Monte Cristo with an SBIG STV CCD in e-Finder mode on July 20 at 11:39 p.m. MDT. It's one of the first images that I've taken. It consists of a combination of six, ten second images that were combined using the SBIG "track and accumulate" mode. The comet was about 6th magnitude and had a faint tail that can be seen at the ten-o'clock hour angle.

OAS OFFICERS ENCOURAGED

YOU can make a difference in the club. Volunteer to be nominated for a club office. A Quorum of OAS members is being appointed to nominate club members for this year's upcoming elections in September. Think about it, be a part. Contribute your ideas and skills to the Executive Committee

Contact Dave Dunn for information.