On behalf of your chair, Brian Shaw, I am happy to announce another joint
engineering Family Day, dinner, lecture/program, and free observing nite
up at Tamke-Allan Observatory this Saturday afternoon/evening May 5, 2007. Which also happens to be our favorite south-of-the-border holiday, Cinco de Mayo.

Program: The UTK mechanical engineering student section, led by Adam Bowen, will be presenting the results of their microgravity research project(s) aboard NASA's famed (notorious?) "Vomit Comet". This is exciting stuff (the Nobel Laureate Stephen Hawking thinks so, so who's gonna argue with him?). I believe there may also be another program about meteorites later in the evening, but this isn't confirmed yet.

Dinner: In recognition of the holiday, I'm gonna make my famous chili, of course, same recipe as in 2005 when we all dedicated the Mary E Watson Solar Telescope. While the stargazing society, ORION, together with your senior sections
welcome and hereby invited to bring a dish of your own to share. We had a process engineer over Watt's Bar Lake, so there should be less time delay between serving the food and chowing down.ORION, together with your
senior sections (ASME-OR and ASME-ET) are hosting this event, you are welcome and hereby invited to bring a dish of your own to share. We had a process engineer redesign the traffic flow inside the classroom up there over Watt's Bar Lake, so there should be less time delay between serving the food and chowing down.

Observing: In addition to the solar hydrogen-alpha telescope, and the big 'scope in the dome, we have some interesting new hardware for you-all to check out. A new mini-radiotelescope for instance, plus a little hand-held widget that shows you exactly where any given star or planet (or artificial satellite for which you've plugged in the 2-line elsets) is, even looking thru the Earth!

There is no charge, but please RSVP with Brian (tennengineer@charter.net, or shawb1@asme.org).

The draft agenda:

1600 or 1700: Start around 4 or 5 by setting up the MEWatson solar
telescope. Meet & greet, set up for dinner. Field experiments with the IBT radiotelescope. 1900 Eat around sundown, say 7 p.m. 2000 First program, "UTK Microgravity Experiments" starts just after dark, say 8 p.m. 2100 Maybe more program(s), plus free observing time on the big scope, and on lotsa amateur scopes set up in the field for planetary and deep-sky work.

Driving directions to the Observatory are here: http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/obs/visit.htm .

I look forward to seeing you-all on Saturday.

Robert Kennedy, PE
president, ORION Inc.
www.orioninc.org
treasurer, ASME-OR