Saturday was the big day for Apollo Rendezvous, the 39th such
convention held by the Miami Valley Astronomical Society (MVAS) at the
Boonshoft Museum of Science in Dayton, Ohio. The day started off early
and, although turnout was down somewhat this year due to the economy,
the dedicated Daytonians and those who came from Cincinnati and beyond
enjoyed an enthusiastic program of talks and activities throughout the day, punctuated by frequent discussions in the hallways and throughout the museum.
In the morning, Ron Whitehead (pictured at right), past president of the host MVAS, presented
a delightful talk on meteorites and described in great detail the
current understanding of origins and compositions of various types. The
fact that Al Mitterling of Mitterling’s Meteorites was set up as a
vendor down the hall certainly helped a number of us, excited by the
talk, to add more to our collections.
See more images from Dave's trip to the 2009 Apollo Rendezvous.
Before lunch we explored the museum and enjoyed a presentation of
“Science on a Sphere,” a new type of astronomy education in which
images and movies are projected onto a rotating projection sphere in
the center of an auditorium. It was an exciting show focusing on the
life cycles of stars, and I encourage you to check it out if you have
the chance to see one of these new machines in action.
After lunch, Tammy Plottner shared her enthusiasm for many historical
astronomers by introducing them and describing their careers and
motivations as Galileo, then Newton, then William Herschel, and right
on down the line, stepped out from the wings in full costume. The
presentation was great and got much of the audience involved in
portraying some of their heroes.
I then described the exploits of Galileo starting with his trip to
Venice in 1609 that led to his reinvention of the telescope and his
historic observations (Related video: The day Galileo changed the universe). I added a great many slides of Astronomy’s
recent trip to Italy onto the back end of this talk, such that audience
members could get a flavor of Galileo and other sites in Rome,
Florence, and Pisa by seeing many of his old haunts.
We then experienced a vast array of door prizes that sent many audience
members home with goodies, and several awards and thank yous for all
the work MVAS members had done over the past year. The meeting ended
with a barbeque and observing at the MVAS Observatory at John Bryan
State Park near Yellow Springs, Ohio, where I enjoyed getting a clear
focus on the Astronomical League and its activities from President
Terry Mann.
Yet another year for Apollo Rendezvous then came to an end. It was a
very good meeting, and I’ll look forward to returning here again, as
the people are among the greatest in the world of amateur astronomy.
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Apollo Rendezvous 2009, Friday
Photos courtesy David J. Eicher