By Joan Mieritz
Special to The PREVIEW
The San Juan Stargazers will hold their regular meeting on Thursday, Aug. 23, in the Visitor Center conference room, located at 105 Hot Springs Blvd.
The meeting is from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Come before 7 p.m. for time to socialize. We start the meeting with introductions and information about upcoming events.
For our program, we are using the series of lessons called “Getting to Know Our Night Sky,” taught by Professor Edward Murphy of the University of Virginia.
That night’s lesson is titled “Observing the Planets with a Telescope.” This is another valuable learning experience about the basics of viewing. We also will be discussing the possibility of setting up some special telescope practice sessions to apply what we have learned.
I want to remind everyone of the special opportunity we have this tonight, Aug. 16, at the Ruby Sisson Library at 5 p.m. Bob Mitchell will be updating us on the James Webb Space Telescope, which he has been working on for over a decade.
The Webb will be the future of astronomy for the next 20 years and possibly will discover other life-forms and maybe things we have not imagined. After Mitchell’s presentation, we will have a dinner celebration at a restaurant to be announced. Everyone is invited to join us. Prices are varied and reasonable.
The San Juan Stargazers are part of the Astronomical League, which includes clubs from all over the U.S. We have a website, www.SanJuanStargazers.com, as well as an email address, sjstargazers@gmail.com, and a club phone number, 335-8286, to help communicate with the public.
Out-of-town amateur astronomers are always welcome as well as anyone interested in learning more about our universe. We hope to see you soon at one of these out-of- this-world events.
