... At the January meeting we finally achieved the necessary quorum in the vote on the bylaws changes proposed in September. ... Giant Ribbon at Edge of the Solar System: Mystery Solved? ... It is where solar wind particles heading out into interstellar space are reflected back into the solar system by a galactic magnetic field." ... Particles from the solar wind that escape the solar system are met ~100 astronomical units (~15 billion kilometers) away by an interstellar magnetic field. ...

... I'm writing this month's message from my hotel room in Cairo after seeing the March 29th, 2006 Total Solar Eclipse yesterday. ... I'm certain that you've already seen many of the wonderful photos people took and you'll have an opportunity to see some and hear more about the eclipse and the trip at the April meeting. ... And, there will be non-eclipse related talks - for example, John Boudreau will discuss how he took the awesome photos of last year's Mars opposition and some of his other webcam work...

... Kepler (con't on Page 4) EYEPIECE Volume 61 Number 5 ISSN 0146-7662 Higgs Boson, The "God Particle" (Not Quite) By Alan Rude On July 4, 2012, two teams at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) completed massive, separate experiments, announcing the "discovery" of a Higgs-like boson particle. Higgs Boson, first theorized in 1964 by British physicist Peter Higgs, explains why matter has mass. ... Higgs did not get it exactly right, though. ... When Will the Higgs Boson Particle Matter? ...

... Return to LX200 Mechanical Index . ... Issues Regarding Drive Systems . ... In the process of repairing two LX200 declination drives, I have gleaned some information which seems to fit together and make good engineering sense.  ... The motors are connected to the main drive axes of the telescope tube through a set of gears and a worm. The reduction gears, worm and main shaft often are not inside the control loop but are extensions, through the gears, of the positions of the drive motor shafts. ...