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Chuck Ring, founding club leader and many times club past president, and his wife, Sue, have been very active members in most FOG club activities since 1995. Sadly, they are moving to West Seattle to live closer to family after 46 years in their Kelso home.  Chuck, a career salesman, has always been FOG’s enthusiastic promoter, very personable recruiter, and community connecter. He and Sue Piper shared their common interest in astronomy at Toastmasters and started our club in spring 1995. They started with a public viewing in Feb. ’95, even before owning any telescopes. Chuck greeted all visitors at those impromptu star parties and recruited to join the club. Chuck and Sue endured icy roads and a car wreck to meet Cal Zambuto, regional Telescope maker. They enticed Carl (now nationally known mirror manufacturer) to teach a mirror grinding and telescope making class to their fledgling group of a dozen astronomy enthusiasts. World famous astrophysicist, James Dobson, Ph.D. lectured our group at Jepson’s workshop at the commissioning of 9 completed 6‘’-8’ Dobs. I joined the first official club meeting in May ’95. Since then, we have met monthly for a scientific program and enjoyed sharing our friendship and interests as astronomy hobbyists. Chuck would frequently setup his new telescope at the Allen St. gas station on clear evenings to invite any passerby to look at the moon. Chuck and Sue always helped with the July solar Picnic, the December potluck Christmas Party and white elephant astro-gift exchange, the Earth Day FOG booth, special public viewings for lunar eclipses, transits, comets, and school events. They helped with newly started Winter Solstice Lantern Walk at Lake Sacajawea, the biennial painting of the Human Sundial at LCC with Steve Powell, Peg, Mark, Greg, or Bill, and the annual Mt. Saint Helens Star Party. Chuck enjoyed cultivating relationships with our monthly guest astronomy speakers at the pre-meeting dinners. He maintained contact with our NASA Solar System Ambassadors, Les Hastings and Greg Cermac. Chuck was passionate about outreach with Sidewalk Astronomy viewing. He was our faithful liaison with Andre Stepankowsky, The Daily News Editor, who published articles that promoted our educational public astronomy events including the 2017 Solar Eclipse. Chuck’s friendly demeanor encouraged many local astronomy aficionados to keep looking up at the starry nights. Chuck is bringing his 8” Dob to their new home. We are excited to stay connected with him through our zoom hybrid meetings. Chuck and Sue feel blessed with their 4 children and 8 grandchildren, who he says, “turned out pretty good!” They are enjoying the loving attention from their family.  But they cherish the fun that we shared in our friendship through Friends of Galileo during 26 years. Please consider corresponding with Chuck and Sue Ring in Seattle (address available to club members).
-- by Mark Thorson
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Click the link below to view or download this month's newsletter. 
 Click the link below to view or download this month's newsletter.
 Click the link below to view or download this month's newsletter.
Congratulations to Steve Powell! Steve retired after 37 years of teaching physical sciences at Mark Morris High School in Longview.  Steve's last day in the classroom. Teaching
Steve mainly taught elective physics and freshman physical science, but occasionally also math and astronomy. For much of the most recent school year, teaching was done via Zoom, but eventually switched to a hybrid model with some students in class and some on Zoom. What was Steve's highest award? The senior class last year voted him the "most dedicated educator." That meant a great deal to to Steve. Friends of Galileo Steve has been a member of Friends of Galileo since the club started in 1995. He is our Treasurer (and past President and VP) and for years has arranged our meeting space at Mark Morris High School. FoG gave a "Human Sundial" to Lower Columbia College in 2005. Steve was instrumental in its design (and describes it here https://www.friendsofgalileo.com/blog/the-human-sundial). Club members first tried purchasing plans that were supposed to be accurate for Longview's coordinates. They tested the plans. "In June of 2005 we used chalk to mark out part of the sundial on my asphalt basketball court. It failed miserably! So I decided to do some online research on the mathematics for such a sundial. Then I created a spreadsheet that calculated the positions of the various parts of the sundial... When we were finally finished, we were delighted and relieved to see that the sundial was accurate to within a minute of the correct time. Not too shabby!" More recently, Steve was the the guest speaker for the FoG meeting in April. He spoke about the tidal forces of the sun and moon on the earth - and the tidal forces affecting galaxies and black holes. He started with basic descriptions of vectors and acceleration, and brought us along to fascinating descriptions of the largest structures in the universe. Retirement plans Steve says the reality of retirement hasn't really hit yet because he's taken off 37 summers already, but this fall it will sink in when he doesn't have to go back to school. He's looking forward to traveling, reading, and home improvement projects. Good luck in retirement, Steve! Sky Report by Ted Gruber
Evening Sky Venus (magnitude -3.9) and Mercury (1.9) become visible in the northwest as the sky darkens right after sunset. Currently, both planets remain visible until setting just after 10:00pm, with Mercury appearing just above Venus. On May 28, the two planets appear less than 0.5° apart, and after that conjunction, brighter Venus appears above Mercury, with the gap between the planets increasing each evening. Mercury remains visible through the first week in June. A thin crescent moon appears about 1.5° north of Venus the evening of June 11. Mars (magnitude 1.7) becomes visible in the west-northwest as the sky darkens. The red planet currently sets just after midnight and around 11:30pm by mid-June. A crescent moon appears about 3° north of Mars the evening of June 13. Morning Sky Saturn (magnitude 0.6) currently rises in the east-southeast just after 1:00am, with Jupiter (-2.4) following about 45 minutes later. Both planets rise about 90 minutes earlier by mid-June and remain visible until fading into the morning sunlight. The moon appears about 5° southeast of Saturn the morning of May 31 and about 5° southeast of Jupiter the next morning. Moon Phases Last (6/2), new (6/10), first (6/17), full (6/24) Hello, everyone. Can you help us with a minor mystery? We're trying to identify the exact model and year of a Celestron NexStar telescope kindly donated to the Friends of Galileo Astronomy Club. It needs some repairs but it should be a valuable part of our telescope library. It's an older model NexStar so the current user manuals don't quite fit. The scope says item #31132, D=130mm, F=650mm. Celestron hasn't responded. The donor said the telescope is functional except for the external battery pack, which takes eight AA batteries. There is no internal power pack is there is in new models. We cleaned up some battery corrosion but no luck getting the hand controller to power on at all. Rose City Astronomers did give us some tips to go on (thanks, RCA!) but we need more info.
If you have any suggestions, let us know through our Contact page. Thanks in advance! |
Friends of Galileo
We are astronomy enthusiasts who love to learn and to share our wonder at the amazing sights right overhead. Archives
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