Member and their guest only event! Dr. Francisco Reyes has invited AAC's members to a special Star Party at UF Rosemary Hill Observatory in Bronson. Sun sets at 7:57 pm.
Please arrive after 7:00 pm and 30 minutes before sun sets to set telescopes. You may drive up to 30" dome or the 18" dome to setup scopes but must park in parking lot which is right of Dorm (Dorm on left side of street) or both sides of street (in grass/dirt) before Dorm.
Event Alerts - Members please register to attend. A "GO" or "NO GO" will be emailed to registrants by noon the day of the event.
Agenda:
7:00 - 7:15 General Meeting & Announcements 7:15 - 7:30 Short topic presentation by a club member
7:30 - 7:45 Refreshment break
7:45 - Public Presentation
Speaker:
Tim Dunn
NASA Launch Director
Launch Services Program
NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center
Topic: NASA’s Launch Support Program and Astronomy
Abstract:
The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) was an American lunar science mission which used high-quality gravitational field mapping of the Moon to determine its interior structure. The Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander continues to study the deep interior of the planet Mars. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-Rex) is an asteroid-study that is to return a sample to Earth in 2023. Three high visibility NASA missions that we all know about, but have you ever considered the complexities associated with getting these missions into space in the first place? Tim Dunn will provide an overview of NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) planning, directing and implementation of these three launch campaigns.
About the Speaker:
Tim Dunn is the NASA Launch Director for the LSP at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He is responsible for planning, implementing and directing launch campaigns and countdowns of science and robotic spacecraft for NASA-managed launch vehicle services. As an Air Force officer he served as a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite analysis officer at the GPS Master Control Station in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He then became a Titan IV Launch Controller at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), directing all spacecraft mission planning and launch campaign activities. He served on launch teams successfully launching eight Titan IV missions in a three-year period. Dunn then worked for The Boeing Company as avionics engineer at CCAFS. He was a launch-day guidance engineer and performed guidance testing for 48 Delta II and Delta III rockets. He worked on crews launching USAF, NASA and commercial spacecraft, notably the Mars Pathfinder, Stardust, Iridium, Globalstar and numerous GPS missions. In 2000, Dunn joined NASA and the LSP as a Delta II avionics and flight controls engineer. His precise monitoring ensured 100 percent mission success for 10 NASA missions in a three-year period, most notably Genesis, Aqua, MER-A, MER-B and SIRTF. In 2003, he became the NASA Delta II vehicle systems engineer. He led NASA's Delta II launch team in assuring technical flight readiness for 17 high-profile NASA missions including MESSENGER, Deep Impact, NOAA-N, Dawn and Kepler. In addition to his full-time job, from 1996 to 2007 Dunn served in the Florida Air National Guard as a Range Operations Commander and flight commander during Eastern Range (ER) launches. He led the 22-member unit operating the ER's mobile telemetry system. In 2009, Dunn became LSP's certification manager. He led the multi-disciplined technical team planning LSP's vehicle certification for NASA's next generation of rockets. He authored the Certification Implementation Strategy and developed the process for contractors to present vehicle qualification data. In 2011, Dunn was selected to be LSP's launch director and has led the NASA launch team in numerous successful missions notably the GRAIL lunar mission, Jason-3, OSIRIS-Rex, and the Mars InSight lander. Dunn has received USAF, Boeing and NASA individual performance and group achievement awards for his work on over 115 missions launched from Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. He earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1986 from the University of Alabama and a Master of Science in space operations from the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio, in 1992.
Jerry Cheney, PhD, OD
Alachua Astronomy Club
Topic: Planetary Nebulae
Planetary nebulae are among the most beautiful and interesting objects to be viewed by amateur astronomers. They are relatively small emission nebulae, representing the death throes of solar mass sized stars. They are misnamed, however, since they are unrelated to planets. We will explore the origin and structure of these objects and their abundance and distribution in the Milky Way. We also will discuss how to best view and photograph them.
Jerry Cheney grew up in southeast Texas. He earned his BS in Biology from Lamar University in 1976 and went on to earn his PhD in Biological Oceanography from the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography in 1981. He then accepted a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he met and married his lovely wife, Marianne. They have two sons, Michael, an industrial engineer in Tampa, and Chris, currently in his final year of Pharmacy School at UF.
Dr. Cheney taught oceanography at the college level and continued his studies of the distribution of zooplankton in the North Atlantic, but after ten years he decided to change careers to become an optometrist. He graduated from the New England College of Optometry in 1994. The family moved to Florida in 1997 and eventually settled in Ocala, where Dr. Cheney practiced for fifteen years. He had the good fortune to be able to retire in 2014.
Dr. Cheney always had an interest in astronomy, and being a scientist by general nature and training, he has taken up astronomy as hobby in retirement He joined the Alachua Astronomy Club in 2015 and has served in the club’s administration for many years, including as president from 2017 to 2019. He teaches science courses, including astronomy, through Senior Learners in Ocala.
Speaker: James Albury
Planetarium Director and host of the YouTube Series "The Sky Above Us"
Topic: Winter Stars
James C. Albury grew up in Miami, FL where he started volunteering at the Miami Museum of Science and Space Transit Planetarium at the of age 14. He began by helping with ushering, but by age 15, he began working part-time as a console operator for the planetarium. Albury enjoyed astronomy and the planetarium environment so much, that he stayed with the Miami Science Museum until age 22 when he moved away to college.
In 1988, Albury relocated to Gainesville, FL to pursue a degree in Astronomy from the University of Florida. He graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in Astronomy and pursued post-baccalaureate studies in astronomy shortly thereafter.
Careers in astronomy being what they were, Albury worked from 1993 - 2007 for UF's Office of Academic Technology and then as a manager with Lifestyle Family Fitness in Jacksonville, FL from 2007 - 2009. In 2009, Albury was able to professionally return to his first love (Astronomy) when he became the director of the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium at Santa Fe College. He has produced numerous planetarium shows in the 11 years that he has been the planetarium’s director.
Albury was also a co-host with Dean Regas of the internationally syndicated PBS show “Star Gazers” (the world’s only weekly television program on naked-eye astronomy). Albury and Regas hosted the show together from October 2011 to November 2019. In February 2020, Albury launched his own astronomy series on YouTube titled “The Sky Above Us”. Each episode gives viewers a sneak-peak at the celestial events, planets and constellations that are visible in the sky during the coming weeks. (http://www.theskyaboveus.org)
Between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2020, Albury served as President of the Southeastern Planetarium Association (SEPA); a professional organization for the support of planetaria and staff in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and all U.S. Territories off the southeastern coast of the U.S. He currently serves on the SEPA Executive Council as Past-president (2021-2022) and advises the current President and Vice-president. (http://www.sepadomes.org)
Albury has spoken around the country and internationally on various astronomical topics, including the challenges and opportunities for public interest in astronomy and astronomical outreach.
Lastly, Albury has a very supportive family in his wife Kandra and three children Drea, Myra and Bryce; without whom none of this would be possible.
