Of course you can set your telescope here!
Photo by Carter Roberts

This month, we're going to try something a little different. We're putting the lecture portion of the meeting first, and holding it in the Tien MegaDome theatre, and refreshments and club business will be held in the Physics classroom on the Second Floor of the Spees Building from 7:00 pm to and through 7:30 pm. If this new format is popular, we'll try keeping it this way.

John and Beth Westfall will report on their view of the solstitial solar eclipse from the deck of the MS Royal Star in the Mozambique Channel off Madagascar. This was John's eleventh eclipse trip and Beth's tenth (they were clouded out for two of these), and their first eclipse cruise. Departing from Mombassa, Kenya, they stopped at Zanzibar, Tanzania and Nosy Be, Madagascar. After the cruise returned to Mombassa, John and Beth spent a week at two game preserves in Kenya.
John is a Professor of Geography, and Beth is a Budget Analyst, at San Francisco State University. Both are Board Members of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers. Last year, Cambridge University Press published John's book, Atlas of the Lunar Terminator.

Michael D. Reynolds ("Dr. Mike") has been Executive Director of the Chabot Space & Science Center (CSSC) since 1991. He holds a Doctorate in Science Education with a minor in Astronomy. Before joining CSSC, Dr. Reynolds was director of the Alexander Brest Planetarium at the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville, Florida, and was chosen as Florida State "Teacher of the Year" " for his innovative classroom work. He was a finalist in the NASA "Teacher in Space" program, trained for space shuttle flight, and spent two years as the Christa McAuliffe Ambassador for Education, speaking to students, teachers and the public about space exploration and astronomy in the aftermath of the Challenger accident. His book, Observe: Eclipses was published by the Astronomical League, and his new book about meteors, Falling Stars, just came out.

Carter Roberts, longtime amateur astro-nomer who specializes in astrophotography, started on the project to relocate the Chabot Observatory in 1982, and has been President of the Eastbay Astronomical Society since 1988. He is the Archivist for the EAS, Historian for the CSSC, and a veteran of 15 total solar eclipse trips. We will see and hear about his recent trip to Africa featuring Cape Town, The Blue Train, six days on safari in the Okovango delta of Botswana, Victoria Falls, and the eclipse in Zambia.