Exoplanets from Kepler's PI

Last night I attended a meeting of the local RASC chapter to hear a talk by William Borucki, the PI of the Kepler Space Telescope. It was utterly fascinating, and he's a great speaker -- engaging and funny. I got to ask him about the proposed successor mission ("K2"), now that Kepler only has two working reaction wheels, and why they picked the patch of sky they did for Kepler to stare at. (Answer: you need a lot of stars, so the galactic plane is the obvious answer; you can't stare right at the plane, though, because there are too many giant stars, so you go a bit above. Why the northern hemisphere? Because ESA has their scopes in the southern hemisphere, and NASA has theirs in the northern. "There's a lot of cooperation, but there's a lot of competetion too.") I got a couple bits that the kids'll like: the sapphire lenses covering the CCD detectors on Kepler (thank Minecraft for their blossoming interest in geology), and the molten iron planet with an eight hour year. (Random other cool thing: I came across a pack of coyotes in the parking lot when I went home.)

All in all, it made me reconsider my non-membership in the RASC. I've joined twice now: once when I was 13, and again three years ago. both times I gave it up because I could not see the point: it's a lot of money ($73 currently), and frankly there are not a lot of benefits that I find worthwhile. Yes, the local chapter does amazing work -- absolutely incredible amounts of really, really great public engagement -- but they only see $26 of that membership fee. So I sent them a cheque one year as a donation, because I think it's worth supporting that. But...I really want another RASC Handbook; that's $28, plus tax and shipping. I really want to continue supporting the local chapter. So I might as well hold my nose and just get the damned membership.

Another time, I will write up my objections to national membership in more detail. For now: like I said, the local chapter does amazing work, and they deserve every penny they get (and more).