At the July 14 meeting of the Gloucester Area Astronomy Club, 8:00 pm at the Lanesville Community Center, Phil Orbanes will reveal some indecorous truths about a dozen famous stars and their lifestyles, from Aldebaran to Sol, from the intemperate “live fast and die young” crowd to the more introspective and generally cool-headed class M red dwarves, whom, for example, you would be less likely to meet in a bar.
In a colorful presentation, and with a wink and a nod, Phil will let us know the ways in which astronomy’s HR diagram of stellar life cycles can be explained by the sidewalk outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and which star would show up where, from Barnard’s Star to the Dog Star.
Phil takes as his point of departure a passage from GAACster Bill Waller’s The Milky Way: An Insider’s Guide, where we learn that “[like] snowflakes — and people — each and every star has its own distinct appearance and behavior.”
Beginning from this simple premise, Phil paints a fascinating picture of the lives of an even dozen of the most famous stars, from nearby Proxima Centauri to distant, and decidedly less well-behaved, Sirius. We’ll even see that Hollywood and Gemini are not all that different: like Lassie, Castor is really a half-dozen stars.
This meeting will be a lot of fun. And like most GAAC meetings, you’ll leave knowing something really interesting that you didn’t know when you arrived. July 14, 8:00 – 9:30 pm, Lanesville Community Center, 8 Vulcan Street.
The Gloucester Area Astronomy Club meets on the second Friday of the month at the Lanesville Community Center, 8 Vulcan Street in Lanesville. More information on the club can be had on their website, http://gaac.us, the club Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/gaacpage, and on twitter, @GAACster.
Beginning Friday, June 30, 2017, the 
Cape Ann Community 