Mississauga Centre RASC

100th Meeting

        Members’ Night

Day:                Friday, February 22, 2008

Chair                 Phil Mozel 

Speakers:          Randy Attwood

                         Chris Malicki

100th Meeting of the MAS – Mississauga Centre

Phil Mozel the original chair of the member nights, was the moderator for this special celebration of the 100th meeting. 

Randy Attwood spoke about the history of the Society and Centre beginning with the Toronto Centre which used to meet at the McLaughlin Planetarium.  The planetarium open in 1968 after a bequest by a RASC member.  When the planetarium closed in 1995, the Toronto Centre had to find a new home, which ended up being the Ontario Science Centre (OSC).  However, the drive to the OSC was a problem for many members in the west GTA.  On May 4, 2002 at a star party when all 5 naked eye planets were visible, Randy found out that more than 250 RASC members lived in Brampton and Mississauga, and he invited them to help out with a new club in the western GTA.  Randy contacted John Percy who became our sponsor at UTM, and he contacted the Toronto and Hamilton presidents who supported the setting up of a local astronomy club.  A list of potential members was drawn up, an announcement was printed in the Mississauga News,  and the first meeting of the Mississauga Astronomical Society was held on April 11, 2003.  He described public outreach by the club including lunar eclipses, Astronomy Day, the Mars observing on August 27, 2003, Terrence Dickinson’s special talk.   He also described observing sessions including the Venus transit, total lunar eclipse in August 2007 and observing at Saddington and Forks of the Credit.  Randy then described how the MAS joined the RASC.

Chris Malicki, Secretary of the Centre then gave an overview of the 100 meetings of the Society and Centre.   Of the 100 meetings, 44 were speaker nights with major topics represented as follows:  Mars – 5 meetings, solar system – 11, observing and astroimaging – 8, galaxies and cosmology – 5, professional astronomy and observatories – 7, history – 8, Moon and eclipses – 4, major astronomy travel themes – 4.  Highly technical speaker nights discussed the solar-terrestrial environment and supernova searching. Interesting demonstrations included using coolaid to model the interstellar medium and a psychology video in which a gorilla is not noticed.  Chris thought that the most inspiring meeting was Ian McGregor’s about Beauty, Pattern and Design in a Violent Universe.   There were also 56 member nights on a large variety of topics.  Major themes in the member nights were the transit of Venus, NASA and space videos, eclipses, astronomical history, the sky this month, astroimaging and observing.  Most of the meetings are summarized in the Mississauga Centre archives. Finally, Chris touched on the ongoing debate between himself and Roy Swanson on orbital energy, and he quoted Jean Meeus from the book “Mathematical Astronomy Morsels III”: “the most economic solution is to launch when the planet is at perihelion.” 

Randy then discussed the future of the Centre, the need for updating the bylaws and he spoke about the council thanking them for their contributions.   

Phil Mozel spoke about the Hall of Space Science at the OSC and the new planetarium.

For the remainder of the meeting, the centre held a celebration for the 100th meeting. Jim Jackson described the contributions that Randy Attwood had made in starting and continuing the MAS and Mississauga Centre.  Colin Jackson presented a commemorative plaque to Randy and a 100th cake donated by Betty Robinson was served.  

 Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to Miss Centre. meeting reports page
Mississauga Centre RASC