• This month's issue finds yet another change to our newsletter format. Photos from our most recent meeting will now be included as part of the "Last Meeting" section. Because of the need to print some copies of Quid Novi, the images are embedded at a viewable size rather than using thumbnails with links. Unfortunately, cost limits require the printed copies be in B&W. But they're all here in glorious color for your online version.
• And don't forget ... we're still looking for a real Editor to take over this newsletter for 2007-2008. If you have the skills, and a couple hours a month spare time, think about stepping up for this position when we have our elections at the May business meeting. It would also be great if the Editor had a digital camera to do some photos at our meetings and other events.
• Our Astronomy Night for Foothills Academy was cancelled due to clouds. Ironically, the days to either side of that scheduled had clear skies. I'm starting to get a bit frustrated about this cloudiness thing. When I moved to AZ in 1978 it was because of the clear skies. Meteorological records claimed the AZ sky was clear 85% of the time. That translates to 1 out of 7 nights cloudy (allowing for longer runs during monsoon season). And that's about the way it was for the first 10 years ... maybe 1 out of every 7 observing events got clouded out. Over the last 10 years that ratio has increased. Not like I've been keeping written records, but it seems closer to 1 out of 4 these days. Is the climate changing? No doubts in my mind.
• Our next public event, Astronomy Night at New River Elementary School, is scheduled for Thursday, January 18th (see DFAC Events above). This could involve a larger group of observers, so if you can assist with a scope, it would be greatly appreciated. Contact me if you are interested. Thanks!
• Our final public event for the year is still a work in progress. Tentatively set for Wednesday, March 21st, we'll be with the Eastside Explorers Homeschool Group. Like the Ladies Guild event, this one will feed our treasury. A donation, amount unspecified, has been promised. This will also be a large group (40-50) of adults and children, so we'll really need some scopes there. Date and details should be finalized by the next issue of this newsletter.
• You know, we still haven't had a private observing session for DFAC members only. And that was one of the things we decided was important to us at our organizational meeting. I did schedule one in June here at Heimhenge, but (drum roll ...) it was clouded out. Scott Loucks promises one at his place as soon as his observatory is finished, but is reluctant to hazard an ETC for that project. With the holidays coming up, it seems futile to attempt anything else this year, but come 2007 (unless I hear from someone else) I'll try for another one at Heimhenge. February looks good, since there's nothing else on the calendar that month. And I'd also like to join PAS up at High Desert Park in BCC one of these days. It's a great dark-sky site. Watch this space for updates.
• As we won't meet again until January, I want to wish you all a joyous holiday season, and thank you for your participation in DFAC. We're still a small club, but growing and evolving. Tell your friends about DFAC, and bring them to our next meeting. I hope to see more of you at that point in spacetime.
• Thanks for reading Quid Novi. You know where to send your feedback. Clear skies!

By 7:15 pm the projector was still, our speaker was ready, and the members had arrived. You see them here milling about and chatting about matters astronomical. There's always a lot of good conversation even before the meeting starts. Left to right: Wayne Johnson, Jim Renn, Roger Serrato, Scott Loucks, George Kantarges, and Ron Walker. Photos by Dan Heim.

The meeting began with Wayne speaking about the history, structure, membership benefits, and activities of the Astronomical League. Most of this information is, of course, available on the League website at http://www.astroleague.org/ but it was more informative to hear it presented by one of their officers, and convenient for asking and answering questions. If you haven't already been to the League website, take some time to browse around there. The guided observing programs are an excellent resource for beginners and experienced amateurs alike.

After about 30 minutes of Astronomical League education, we moved into part two of the evening's lecture. Mr. Galaxy earned that moniker for his multiple supernova discoveries, including two in a single evening! Wayne had prepared a nice personal account of his experience, so rather than reproduce it here, it was scanned and OCR'ed into electronic form. You can download that document below:

SN.doc (30k)
SN.pdf (92k)

With the small group at hand, there was a lot of interaction between members and speaker. Everyone wanted to know the details about how he acheived his 6 SN discoveries. In addition to quality equipment, according to Mr. Galaxy, it mostly boils down to time at the eyepiece (or CCD). He also emphasized the importance of having access to quality reference images of galaxies for comparison. There's a lot of this online, and he recommends the Bright Supernovae Website: http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/snimages/.

Members in attendance: 6 (a bit low, but still not too bad for a new club).

— Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain

There's a website that addresses these issues, and it's really worth checking out. Bad Astronomy is a fascinating website, hosted by Philip Plait at Sonoma State University in California. He's doing a great job providing resources to help debunk these astronomical myths. You can visit his website at: http://www.badastronomy.com/intro.html