Great meeting in January!

 Hi everyone. We had a very productive January meeting.

Solstice Lantern Walk awards

The Friends of Galileo organized Longview's first-ever Solstice Lantern Walk through the Solar System on December 21, 2018. It was a great success!

Our judges, Marin, Noel and Ava, announced the winner of the Out of this World Award for best planet. They came up with the criteria:

• Happy Planet Hosts, 
• Creative Decorations and/or Activities, 
• Themed Decorations and/or Activities and 
• Overall Attraction of the Display

After visiting each planet, they gave the award to the Lilac Academy for Bright and Curious Girls for their display at Saturn.

Hazel and Ila, and parents Matt and Sarah, did a terrific job. They had a brightly-lit booth, information about their planet and about women in space, and even LED-lit hula hoops for Saturn's rings. They also lit the path of the Solstice Lantern Walk with luminarias - for at least 500 feet!

Friends of Galileo presented them with a planesphere and a red LED flashlight to help them continue their astronomical explorations.

We also had a number of online votes. Our judges gave the People's Choice Award to the Girl Scouts of Western Washington for their display at Venus. Venus definitely had the longest lines of interested people. Well done!

And we were pleased to have so many of our planet sponsors present at the meeting.

• Earth, Gloria from the Longview Garden Club (longviewgardenclub.org)
• Mars, Heather from Shinju Dojo Aikido (shinjudojo.com)
• Saturn, the Sharp family from the Lilac Academy for Bright and Curious Girls (no web page)
• Uranus, Dennis from the Boy Scouts, Cascade Pacific Council (cpcbsa.org)
• Neptune, Bruce from the Mt. St. Helens Hiking Club (mtsthelensclub.org)
• Pluto, Howard and Darla from Rose City Astronomers (rosecityastronomers.net)

Thank you all for coming!

Speaker

Mark Thorson spoke on "Limiting Magnitude," that is, how we calculate the relative brightness of stars. The system we still use today has its origins with the Greek astronomer Hipparchus - over 2,000 years ago!

Future events

• June 21, Solstice Picnic and Star Party. This will be a fun event on its own, and it will be the first planning meeting for our 2nd Solstice Lantern Walk in December. Location and other details to follow.
• Aug. 23 & 24, Mt. St. Helens Star Party, Aug. 23 & 24. Details to follow.

The club has a few more events to consider. Will we participate in the following?

• April 22, Earth Day.
• July 1 - 4, Go Fourth.
• July 24 - 27, Cowlitz County Fair.