Rotary Club of Marana
 
                                                                            
Our Thanksgiving week meeting began with The Pledge followed by the old standard "Old MacDonald Had A Farm". Lynne chose the song and the animal (turkey). Most members were familiar with the song. Guests included former Marana member Debbie Conover and Erica (?) an observer and communications student from UA.
 
 Denise spoke at Lori Malangone's school Open Doors and awarded prizes to good listeners. I have Dollar General in my notes for reason unknown, but probably related to our meeting.
 
 
President Holt spoke of progress with our multi club Tree Planting Project, but still no firm date. 
 
 
 Tour de Tucson Aide Station was a rousing success. Richie Benner was impressed with the turn out of so many "Friends of Rotary" including spouses and children (David Hindman). Peter does not like Peanut Butter. Peter's old truck was used as a dumpster, he has pictures to prove it, and John Zwick's new truck was not abused "this" year. It is anticipated Rotary International's "Ride for the Cure" is expected to raise ............10 MILLION DOLLARS towards the eradication of polio. Our Aide Station is the second most popular stop on the 110 mile tour next to the Firehouse Pancake stop.This is our 24th year.
 
Everybody happy, except Peter and Tony(That's what my notes say). Randy was here, but not his name badge. If you had trouble remembering his name see him next meeting for a referral. Debbie Conover sang the praises of Rotary's RV Fellowship which she is heavily involved with. 
 
Dan won and lost the raffle. Loudest applause of the meeting was for Lynne's "No joke today." comment. 
 
 Peter Mack Astrophysicist and Marana Rotarian spoke of his 24 year old business Astronomical Associates. At one time he wrote programs for astronomers telling them where to point their telescopes to observe what they wanted to see. He now supports, renovates and manufactures scopes all over the world including Egypt, Australia and Chile.
 He spoke of the Large Synoptic Telescope and the smaller scope alongside it. The large scope takes pictures of large pieces of the universe and the smaller scope helps to determine the best time to photograph when the turbulence is low (the shimmering one observes when watching a sunset in the hot desert. Most scopes are located at 8,000 to 10,000 feet or higher to lessen the disturbance.   Peter's explanation of the red spectrum shift (he specifically pointed out the indicator for the element sodium) being similar to the doppler effect experienced with sound enabled many of us to better understand the concept. This is used to determine distance from observer to object being observed.
 
Many questions were deferred to another date as they were not specific to his business operation and time was limited. Peter did promise another field trip to Kitt Peak in the coming months and offered to be a speaker at a future meeting regarding general astronomy and recent major advances in the field of Astronomy.