ONLINE – General Meeting – July 2021

6:30 – 8:00 pm:  Open to everyone (via Facebook Live)                                      Approximately 8:00 pm:  Members Only (via Zoom)

TAAA’s next general member meeting will be held on Friday, July 2, 2021, and available online. The Main Presentation starts at 6:30 P.M and is open to the public. A Members Only Meeting will follow. Non-members may attend the Main Presentation via Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/TucsonAstronomy/. Members should attend the meeting via Zoom.

6:30 pm – Main Presentation

Title:  Solar Cycle 25 and The Association of Lunar & Planetary Observers Solar Section (ALPOSS)

Presentation:  Solar cycles are on average 11 years, with the Sun’s sunspot activity during them transitioning from quiet to active and back to quiet in that time. At its quietest, the Sun is at solar minimum, where we are now. During a good solar maximum, the Sun will be covered with spots, and with the right filters, seen to be erupting with flares and huge prominences. Solar Cycle 25 is the current solar cycle. It began in December, 2019, with the Sun at its least active.  ALPO Solar Section Coordinator and long-time TAAA member, Richard ‘Rik” Hill will talk about the Sun’s current ramp-up, comparing the three major predictions for its increasing activity, and explaining how The ALPOSS observes this ramp-up, with its members contributing to the database of solar observations. Solar cycle predictions are very important; ‘space weather’ or conditions in space change much like weather on Earth. Solar outbursts lead to a range of effects, from breathtaking auroras, to the disruption of satellites, radio communications, the power grid, and yes, even smart phones.

Presenter:  Richard “Rik” Hill’s interest in astronomy was galvanized at age 8 when a substitute teacher in his two-room schoolhouse in rural Oakland County, Michigan, brought a telescope to school and projected an image of the Sun. In the Navy, Rik served as a radar tech on a ship chosen as an Atlantic backup recovery ship for Apollo 8. Since 1975, he’s been a member of the Association of Lunar & Planetary Observers (ALPO) and the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).  From 1979-1991, Rik operated the Burrell Schmidt telescope on Kitt Peak. In 1982, he founded ALPO’s Solar Section. In 1999, Rik began working with the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), a near-earth asteroid search project, through which he discovered thousands of asteroids, naming over 120 of them before retiring in 2015.  In retirement, he is still the Coordinator for the ALPOSS. He also enjoys working at his home observatory, collecting fossils big and small, cultivating bonsai trees, vegetable gardening, and taking in rescue cats. Rik is married to Dolores Hill, who works on the OSIRIS-REx mission team to return a soil sample from the asteroid Bennu.