PAS President Message

The PAS February Meeting will be held at the UNO Lakefront Campus Science Building, Room 1001. The meeting begins at 7:30 PM on the night of the 26th This month's presentation will be "Assembling A Sky Shed Pod Observatory" by Walter Sarrat. Many of us have wanted our own observatory and this is an excellent chance to find out how one of our members did it. Be sure to make this meeting and invite family and friends. We will have some nice prizes for the monthly raffle as well.

There were three things I wanted to see before I die, 1) Contact with an intelligent alien life form 2) Man on Mars 3) The New Orleans Saints winning a Super Bowl. Now I don't know about the first two, but can you believe it? The Saints have won a Super Bowl! Even those of you who are not Saints, or even sports, fans can understand the magnitude of this. Hopefully the Saints victory will help with the continued recovery of the area. With that, congratulations to all of the fans who waited so long for this. This gives hope to those of us waiting for the Cubs to make a World Series.

I urge everyone to visit our local astronomy venues. We are lucky to have:

Stennis Space Center (Mississippi)
Roussel Planetarium (Kenner)
St. Charles Parish Planetarium (Luling)
Gretna Observatory
Highland Road Observatory (Baton Rouge)
Baton Rouge Planetarium

All of these facilities are worth the trip and I am sure at least a couple of them are not far from you. All of these places represent an excellent way to introduce astronomy and space exploration to family and friends.

Remember the PAS's website is a great place to visit for up to date club news. I remind everyone of this because I am sure that we will begin having our usual outreach events and remember, we need your help. Some of the most enjoyable club events are our outreach events. John Cerniglia and John Watzke, our outreach coordinators, would truly appreciate your help with any of these events. You can visit the club website at http://www.pasnola.org

If you have astronomy books that you no longer read, you may want to donate them to the PAS Library. If so, please bring them to a meeting or contact John Cerniglia.

Clear Dark Skies To All,
Mike Sandras - President PAS