The presentation for the July meeting was an overview of Exoplanets given by club member Brian Reasor. The slide-talk and video pulled together Exoplanet topics such as how many are known to exist (1700+) and where they are located (mostly within 500 light years of our sun).
The talk also covered the major discovery methods used to find Exoplanets and included a fantastic video from the NASA Kepler team describing how they use the Transit Method to find planets around other stars. Other topics discussed were habitable zones, Exoplanet atmospheres and a survey of some extreme and Earth-like worlds before finishing up with a discussion of Drake’s Equation, SETI and the search for life on other worlds. Attendees had a lot of great questions and comments.
After the talk, 2 of our members were presented with Observings Awards from the Astronomical League, one for the Binocular Messier Program and the other for the Messier Program (each of the 110 objects sketched!). Congratulations to our award winners!
