Taking pictures through your telescope with a digital camera Terry Barker Last meeting by Terry Barker

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Ken Wilson will be conductiing his How to Buy a Telescope class this Saturday. The lunar ecipse viewing at the SMV was clouded out Jim Blowers brought in some pictures from last month's picnic. Jerry Vaughn had good seeing conditions at Powhatan last month. Ruth Petrov spotted 7 Messier Objects. Ray Moody was there another night, and also had good conditions. He reported that there were 10 telscopes there.

Observatory

Jim Petty and Ray Moody have been painting the observatory. Tim Brittain has cut the grass.

Skywatches and other events:

Dec. 10, Chesterfield County Skywatch at Clover Hill, 6:00 pm Dec. 10-11, Malvern Hill skywatch Dec. 13, Geminid Meteors Dec. 17, SMV Skywatch Roger Rigby greeted our visitors--Mark Campbell and Earl Butky.

Ted Bethune gave a short presentation on the Russian Space Program. He had several pictures of 1960 vintage rockets. The Russions employed a different technique than we do for building rockets--they build them horizontally, and then raise them after completion.

Roger Rigby gave the main presentation, "An Overview of Manned Private Flight." Roger started with the Wright brothers' famous flight in 1903. That led into; barnstorming, where pilots showed off their skills at air shows with stunt flying, wing walking, etc.; Charles Lindberg and his solo flight from New York to Paris; and then, of course, to the moon landing, and today's shuttle missions.

 December meeting by Terry Barker

We're having our annual Christmas celebration this month--bring your food, and we'll chow down after the meeting (and it will be short!). Susan Brubaker has set up a food page--www.pipeline.com/~aviatrix/RASpicnic.htm.

Dues are due by Cindy Bowers

Your 2005 dues can be paid to our treasurer, Cindy Bowers, at any of the meetings, or by mail. Please use the form enclosed in this newsletter.

2005 board and officer elections by Terry Barker

We elected our 2005 board members. They are:

Terry Barker Jim Blowers Cindy Bowers Gary Cowardin Dave Credicott Norm Guenther Joe Hetmanski John Barnett David Medici Roger Rigby David Thomas Jerry Vaughn

At the board meeting, we also elected the following officers:

President--David Credicott Vice President--Roger Rigby Secretary--David Medici Treasurer--Jim Blowers

And the board made the following appointments:

Observatory Director-Gary Cowardin Public Skywatch Directors-Gary Cowardin and Joe Hetmanski Librarian--Susan Brubaker Observatory Director-Gary Cowardin Membership--Roger Rigby Historian--Ruth Petrov