Thanks to Kim for his work on this months meeting.
The meeting began as
usual with a "What's Up " item given this month by Jim, the
Lunar phases and planetary prospects were covered as was the seasonal
sky with the advent of the summer constellations now swinging into
the sky during the early hours.
Of the Planets, though
several are on display, it is really only Jupiter and Venus that show
well, the rest are either setting early, or too low to show much
detail.
After Jim's
presentation and the obligatory tea and biscuits, the group settled
down in some anticipation of the main event, a talk on Satellite
Altimetry by Prof Phillipa Berry.
I doubt if many had much idea what
to expect, even less could figure the application of the discipline,
but after a rather complex start, Philippa started to make clear the
purpose of this rather extensive space program, and it's applications
were surprising and varied, being able to detect ocean plate ridges
due to the variance of the earth's gravity, which in turn causes a
noticeable variation in the mean sea level. Also topography, and
rising water levels, measuring various lakes and even river systems,
the variety and detail possible with this technology was remarkable.
In the solar system
itself microwave altimetry has been used to study Titan, and due to
the nature of the Methane/Ethane sea, the returns were able to see
the depth of the shallower parts of the hydrocarbon lake (we learned
that this was not possible with water due to the ionic bond nature of
water molecules, but the co-valent bonding in Methane allowed some
penetration and return, thus the depth reading was possible) this was
quite a discovery.
Much finer details were
covered during the discourse, but I have neither the ability nor the
memory to include them in this report, suffice to say, the talk was a
fascinating insight into the whole arena of this particular area of
research.
The evening did not, as
is more usual, end there, we were also treated to a minor fashion
event as our Secretary, Rob Woodman, provocatively modelled the new
polo shirts that are now available to order, along with some fleece
and hoody style over garments.
All in all, a fine
meeting in which we all learned something.
