July 9, 2010 – RACOBS was clouded out so a meeting was held at the Museum. This time, rather than an unplanned meeting, Steve Izzo brought his computer and showed his favorite summer objects that he has imaged. He also projected views from The_Sky planetarium program to show where the objects were located. Many of the 17 members present shared their favorite objects visible in the summer sky.
July 23, 2010 – Regular Meeting. Roy Campbell, an artist on the staff of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh gave our group a preview of the new addition to the museum called the Nature Research Center. Roy presented a slide show with architectural conceptual drawings and animations of what the new buildings will look like. Roy started with a quick history of the Museum at its current location that we have been using for the last few years. His drawings showed the new addition will be across the street on the Jones-Salisbury corner with covered walkway access from the old museum over Salisbury Street. There will be a cool new globe out front that will be so large that it will hold a theater inside. It will be called the “Daily Planet”. We may even see planetarium type shows inside the multi-level structure. The building behind it will house new interactive space for visitors as well as a way to watch scientists in a research lab doing their work. There should be an astronomer/astrophysicist working there. They will be having “Meet the Scientist” times where the scientist will come out on a periodic basis and discuss their work with the Museum visitors. There will be investigative labs, places for collections, a space for special events like when NASA comes on Astronomy Days, and a space called “Connecting Science with Art”. One other new exhibit will be called “Citizens and Science” which is about volunteers helping out the Museum.
The project will cost about $123 million. Part of the cost will be for the new Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) building which will be adjacent to the museum building. The friends of the Museum will be raising around $54 million dollars to help pay for the new facility. The State, Raleigh, and Wake County will also contribute to the project.
In the business meeting, Ian Hewitt asked the members present if a Club camping trip on Sept. 10-12 was going to have enough interest to schedule. A show of hands affirmed that and possible locations were discussed – mountains or coast. Ian and Mike Keefe also discussed the results of the RAC survey that was recently undertaken. The focus was on how to keep the business meeting short to allow more time to allow members to interact with each other during the break. There was also a brief discussion about how the clouded out RACOBS meeting would be handled at the Museum. Doug Lively discussed the UNC Science Festival on Sept. 25. He called for volunteers to either man solar telescopes at the sundial in front of Morehead Planetarium or staff a table on the quad behind the planetarium to talk about the RAC. Ian announced that the next imaging group meeting would be replaced by a “web summit” at Blinco’s on Glenwood Ave. Members are encouraged to attend and give ideas about what content needs to be put on the site and how it is presented. The group adjourned to Tripps to eat around 9:30.
