2016 Victoria Centre Council Nominations

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RASC Victoria Centre

Council (Board of Directors) Nominations 2017

  • President
    • Overall responsibility for Victoria Centre, public relations, conducts meetings
    • Nomination: Chris Purse
  • 1st Vice President
    • arrange speakers for meetings and events, event preparation
    • Nomination: Reg Dunkley
  • 2nd Vice President
    • membership, special projects, events
    • Nominations: Deb Crawford
  • Secretary
    • minutes, official records, correspondence
    • Nomination: Leslie Welsh
  • Treasurer
    • budget, financial records, taxes, retail sales
    • Nomination: Bruce Lane
  • Librarian
    • Nominations: Michel Michaud, Diane Bell (assistant)
  • Director of Telescopes
    • Nomination: Sid Sidhu
  • Light Pollution Abatement Chair
    • Nomination: Dave Robinson
  • School Outreach Co-Chairs
    • Nominations: Lauri Roche, Sid Sidhu
  • Public Outreach Chair
    • Co-ordinates and arranges public outreach events and volunteers
    • Nomination: Ken Mallory
  • Past President
    • Nomination: Sherry Buttnor
  • National Representative and Liaison
    • Nomination: Nelson Walker
  • Membership Coordinator
    • Nomination: Chris Purse
  • Skynews Editor
    • Nomination: Reg Dunkley
  • Observing, Co-Chairs
    • Nominations: Jim Stilburn, Michel Michaud
  • Technical Committee Chair
    • Nominations: Matt Watson
  • Webmaster
    • Nominations: Joe Carr

Members at Large: Nominations:

  • Jim Hesser (National RASC Anniversary Working Group)
  • Lauri Roche (National RASC Anniversary Working Group )
  • James DiFrancesco (DAO Liaison)
  • Alex Schmidt (UVic Liaison)
  • David Lee (Observing)
  • Li-Ann Skibo (RBCM Liaison)
  • Bill Almond (Historian)
  • Chris Gainor (National Officer)
  • John McDonald (Astronomy Café)

Please contact Nelson Walker (Past President and Nominations Chair – email) to nominate yourself or another RASC member for any office listed above.

Pizza Party! Yes, the one I promised. :-D

Posted by as Meetings, Special Events

Remember the pizza party I mentioned? Probably not…it was a year ago or more. Well, it’s on! As a thank you for all the long hours and hard work you’ve put in at various events, we’re inviting all Victoria Centre members (and your spouses) to a party.

If you are a RASC-Victoria Centre member, and have volunteered at one or more RASC events in the last couple of years, you’re invited!
-Saturday December 3rd.
-6pm-10pm
-Garry Oak room, Fairfield Community Centre,1341 Thurlow Road, Victoria.
This will be a pizza party, our regular monthly meeting for December, and a Members Night combined. We’d like at least two or three members to come and show off their skills: astrophotography, research projects, telescope making, crafts….anything astronomy-related that you’d like to share with the group.
Please email me directly if you plan to attend (and if you’re bringing your spouse), and if you’d like to present something as part of Members Night. Also let me know if you have any food allergies and/or special requests for pizza.

Email me at: popokinui@shaw.ca

*Please note: there will be NO regular monthly meeting at UVic in December.  The Pizza Party/Member’s Night will be in its place.  We will hold a short business segment as usual as required by our bylaws (around 7:30pm), but this meeting will be primarily a Thank-You get-together for our amazing volunteers.

President’s Message October 2016

Posted by as President's Message

Two thousand, four hundred fifteen. 2415. That’s the grand total for our Summer Saturday Star Parties at the DAO. Despite clouds and rain, 194 visitors came out to our final star party at he DAO on September 24th, raising the total to 2415. That’s an amazing number. Given that it was cloudy and showery for the first five or six Saturday star parties, and the final one, it’s a testament to the knowledge and enthusiasm of you amazing Victoria Centre members offer the public, that visitors would come up to the DAO at all during inclement weather. But come they did, rain or shine, 2415 of them.
Once again, congratulations and a heartfelt THANK YOU to all the volunteers who made this work. Well done!
Remember the pizza party I mentioned? Probably not…it was a year ago or more. Well, it’s on! As a thank you for all the long hours and hard work you’ve put in at various events, we’re inviting all Victoria Centre members (and your spouses) to a party. If you volunteered at one or more RASC events in the last couple of years, you’re invited!
-Saturday December 3rd.
-6pm-10pm
-Garry Oak room, Fairfield Community Centre,1341 Thurlow Road, Victoria.
This will be a pizza party, our regular monthly meeting for December, and a Members Night combined. We’d like at least two or three members to come and show off their skills: astrophotography, research projects, telescope making, crafts….anything astronomy-related that you’d like to share with the group.
I will post this party as a separate event on our website front page. Please email me directly if you plan to attend (and if you’re bringing your spouse), and if you’d like to present something as part of Members Night. It’ll be fun!

The President and Secretary of the newly-minted RASC Yukon Centre will be visiting Victoria October 7th through 10th. Anthony Gucciardo (President) and his wife Catheryne Lord (Secretary) would like to meet us, and have a tour of the VCO. Depending on the weather; if it’s cloudy/raining, we will meet them and show them around the VCO Saturday afternoon. If it’s clear out, I’ve invited them to join in when the VCO is in action Saturday evening (Oct 8th). All Active Observers are welcome to come out and meet them. I’ll send an email with details when I know what the weather is doing that day.

Observing plans with the UVic 32” telescope are ongoing. I’ve had to write a new proposal to the telescope committee asking for telescope time. I’ve asked for the second Friday of each month as before, but we may have to be flexible regarding which evenings we’re allotted. I’ll let you know.

Some sad news: life Member Dr. Edward Robert Walker has passed away in June. A long-time Member, the Victoria Centre meant a great deal to him, and he will be missed. Sincere condolences to his family from all of us at RASC-Victoria Centre.

Some upcoming events:
-RASCals of Cattle Point. Bruce Lane’s terrific observing meetup begins Friday October 7th at 7:30pm (weather permitting). Check our website and watch for emails for upcoming Cattle Point sessions.
https://victoria.rasc.ca/events/rascals-cattle-point/
-October monthly general meeting. Wednesday October 12th, 7:30pm, room A104 in the Bob Wright Building at UVic. October’s guest speaker is Dr. Christian Marois:
“Searching for Habitable Planets around our Closest Neighbors, the Alpha Centauri Triple Star System.” How awesome is that!?

Oct 12, 2016 – Searching for Habitable Planets around Alpha Centauri – Dr. Christian Marois

-Astronomy Cafe. Every Monday, 7:30pm, in the annex behind Fairfield Community Centre. Informal, informative, great company! Everyone welcome…members and non-members.

Astro Café

-Annual General Meeting. Sunday, November 27th, 6pm to 10pm. Watch for emails announcing the AGM, and details will be posted to the Victoria Centre website on or about October 15th. Just a reminder that we are returning to the Cedar Hill Golf Course; it’s a great room, with a terrific menu.

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for better weather, so we can get out there enjoy some great Autumn observing!

Clear skies,
Sherry.

Oct 12, 2016 – Searching for Habitable Planets around Alpha Centauri – Dr. Christian Marois

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October 12, 2016, 7:30PM, University of Victoria, Bob Wright Centre A104 – RASC Victoria Centre’s monthly meeting

Event info

“Searching for Habitable Planets around our Closest Neighbors, the Alpha Centauri Triple Star System.” – Dr. Christian Marois, NRC Herzberg

Dr. Christian Marois
Dr. Christian Marois

The Alpha Centauri star system is ideal to search for habitable planets by various observing techniques due to its proximity and wide range of stellar masses. Following the recent discovery of an Earth-size planet candidate located inside the Proxima Centauri habitable zone, I will discuss this remarkable discovery and the planet’s potential to find life. I will also present our current project to discover similar planets around the two Sun-like pair located 15,000 AU from Proxima Centauri. The Alpha Centauri system is the prime target of the Breakthrough Starshot program, a project to send small quarter-size probes to take resolve images of these new worlds, and to prepare for Humanity’s first step into a new star system.

Bio: Dr Marois completed his Ph.D. at the Université de Montréal in 2004. The main topic of his thesis work was to understand the limits in exoplanet imaging and to design innovating observing strategies. After his thesis, he did postdoctoral researches at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Univ. of California Berkeley and NRC. In 2008, while at NRC, he led the team that took the first image of another planetary system (HR 8799) using the Keck and Gemini telescopes. He is currently pursuing his research at the NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics where he is part of the Gemini Planet Imager campaign and developing instruments for imaging Earth-like planets at Gemini South and the TMT.

Presentation video