The Warren Astronomical Society Paper

Volume 30, Number 9, September, 1998

Table of Contents

Astro Chatter

by Larry Kalinowski

Smaller, faster and cheaper. That's the trend for new satellites according to NASA. SATBOTS, are what Marl Tilden of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, calls the creation of his development team. About the size of a hamburger, Mark says his McSatellites would revolutionize satellite technology. They're so small, they can be launched hundreds, or even thousands at a time and the data of each could be combined to produce a grand overall data bank of information. He foresees the cost of each satellite as low as two dollars. Combined with Liek Myrabo's laser launch method, even the cost of launching the McSatellites could be brought down considerably. Myrabo works for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. The satellites would be pushed into orbit by his pulsating laser beam at three hundred pulses per second.

Comet hunters got some good news this month. Starting in July '98, any amateur that discovers a new comet, with amateur equipment, will be eligible to win twenty thousand dollars in cold, hard cash. The Wilson award will be shared with all amateur comet discoverers, each year. How's that for observing incentive?

I bought the August issue of SKY AND TELESCOPE at the local bookstore in Roseville and was surprised to see that a CD disk of REDSHIFT V3.0 was included with the magazine at no extra charge. It's not a fully operating version, of course, but it's designed to show off the programs main features. You must have WIN95 on your computer to run it. I suspect ASTRONOMY will do the same, in the near future, just to keep up with the competition.

PLUS98 is another enhanced version of WIN98 with different games and applications. It's main point of interest is that it's designed to automatically produce a zipped file when you store a file in special folders. Those folders are called zip folders and also automatically unzip the file when you want to bring it back for examination. It will also create standard folders along with the zipped type. It could save you plenty of disk space if you're inclined to use large files and programs. You have to have 195 megabytes of disk space for PLUS98.

Thanks to Bob Watt, the club is twenty dollars richer because of his sales of shareware disks at the SMURFS gathering. Bob says there were 115 registered at this years starparty. The best deal of all was the sale of an eight inch CELESTRON for $600.

The August computer meeting will be at Gary Gathen's home, on Thursday the 27rd. The September meeting on the 24th, as well as the rest of the fourth Thursday meetings through, and including, October. All new visitors will receive a free Windows planetarium program. Gary lives in Pleasant Ridge, at 21 Elm Park, three blocks south of I-696 and a half block west of Woodward Ave. His number is 248-543-3366.

I'm still looking for someone to take my place as Computer Group chairman. If you're interested, give me a phone call at 810-776-9720.

Minutes of Meetings

by Bob Watt
Macomb, July 16, 1998
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