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General Membership Meetings

Members at a meeting

Upcoming Meetings

Sunday, February 21, 2010 - Alan Goldberg, member of NOVAC and a principal scientist with The MITRE Corp.

Alan Goldberg will reprise a talk he gave at the AHSP this year on "The Earth is a Planet, Too: What's New in Looking at Earth from Space."  Civil and commercial remote sensing satellites are providing new ways to see and monitor the Earth. There are interesting similarities and differences between the ways we look at Earth and the ways we look at other planets for scientific, technical and policy reasons.  Alan will illustrate those similarities and differences between the ways we look at Earth and other planets, and the similarities and differences in the types of sensors we use.

Alan is a member of NOVAC and a principal scientist with The MITRE Corp. in McLean, VA.  He's been an amateur astronomer since elementary school.  After graduate study at Univ. of Texas and MIT in astronomy and planetary science, he worked on the design and operation of the Hubble Space Telescope.  He has also worked on Landsat, NASA's Earth Observing Satellite (EOS) series, and NOAA's NPOESS weather satellites.  He currently assists the government in buying commercial space-based Earth imagery.


General membership meetings are open to the public, and are held at  Enterprise Hall, room 80, on the campus of George Mason University (directions) in Fairfax, Virginia. The meeting hall is in the basement floor of the building. Paid parking is available in the Sandy Creek parking structure, which is a short walk from the building. Some members have also chosen to park across the street in the far reaches of the Patriot Center's parking lot, then walk up the path to the rear of Enterprise Hall.  

Meetings start at 7:00 PM, on the second Sunday of every month. If you come earlier you can do a little socializing. The first part of the meeting is club business, during which the officers make reports about their activities and areas of responsibility. The next part of the meeting usually includes:

  • Show and Tell, where members share gadgets, books, techniques, etc.
  • The Observing Report, describing the astronomical events for the next month.
  • Q&A, where beginning astronomers are encouraged to ask questions to be answered by more experienced members.
  • The Sky Tour, describing what's where in the sky for the next month.

The final part of the meeting is a program, usually by one of the members, but sometimes by "outside experts". We've had presenters from all aspects of Astronomy.

There's a good deal of socializing before and after meetings, allowing members to put faces with the voices they've heard in the dark.

Please Join Us For Dinner!
Since February, 1995, a number of NOVAC members have been congregating on the night of our regular meetings for dinner. Hopefully this assists in getting to know one another, at a more relaxed location than at the meeting itself. It's also nice to see who it is you're talking to for a change and be able to connect faces with names - unlike the usual observing situation. All are welcome to attend, whether NOVAC members or prospective members, guests or whoever - just be prepared to discuss a little astronomy or any other topic that pops up!

If you'd like to join us, stop by the Red, Hot and Blue restaurant at 5:30 PM. See you there!
 

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