[AZ-Observing] Re: Dave Healy
- From: ketelsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:06:30 -0700
Sad news about Dave Healy. I first met him, along with Jeff Medkeff, back in
2007 on a trip they made to the Mirror Lab with Tom and Jenn Polakis. Having
discovered so many asteroids he was actively looking for names to nominate, so
for some reason he proposed mine! The weekend visit also included a birding
trip to Whitewater Draw (my first), and a tour of his Junk Bond Observatory.
Living in Sierra Vista, our paths crossed rarely, but in a subsequent trip to
Whitewater, I invited him along, and asked to borrow his 400mm F/4 lens
(perfect for birding and astronomy) that he had offered on that first
trip. He
chose not to join us, but we chatted at length about a number of topics, and
allowed me to use the lens for a few weeks to try out. His generosity was
quite apparent, and I'll miss him a lot.
-Dean
Quoting Tom Polakis <tpolakis@xxxxxxx>:
> I recently received news from Wayne Johnson that Dave Healy passed
> away on June 6. The family wanted to keep the service private, and
> it was held on Monday.
>
>
> Wayne wrote the following about Dave.
>
> "Dave with his 32-inch R-C telescope discovered about 500 asteroids
> along with Jeff Medkeff who passed away about 7 years ago. For the
> past several years Dave's 32-in has been (and still is) being used by
> a couple HAC members for use in the search for exo-planets. Dave and
> his wife, Cheryl, hosted the annual HAC Christmas Parties for the
> past 10 years including countless monthly star parties, which were
> open to the public. He was also the Astronomical League Correspondent
> (ALCor) for HAC so he wasn't just a passive, retired member of our
> club. Dave also served on (and made contributions to) the Arizona
> Astronomy Board, which lines up funding for the various observatories
> in the state and had many professional connections because of it.
>
> It's a shame you have to wait for someone to pass on before you find
> out more about them. The same is true for Dave. As was mentioned
> earlier he had four children (three girls and a boy) and he would
> have been married to his wife, Cheryl, for 50 years later this year.
> He was not just a marathoner, but a triatholoner, and apparently
> participated in about 100 such events (one would
> have killed me!). Dave was also a member of a men's choral singing
> group. Professionally he was a stockbroker and made his money selling
> junk bonds, hence the name of his observatory! When he lived in the
> New York City area Dave was an avid member of the Astronomical
> Society of Long Island and was a pioneer in early amateur
> astrophotography, experimenting with cooled emulsion cameras and,
> later, hypering film. Many of his astrophotos showed up in S&T and
> Astronomy magazines. Dave also wrote articles for those magazines.
> Though he officially retired when he moved to Sierra Vista, where he
> apparently had ancestors who homesteaded a couple square miles of
> land near what is now Naco, south of Bisbee, AZ, you could continue
> to hear Dave's voice on the radio as an expert on the car business.
>
> Dave was a kind, intelligent, and generous man to the end and he will
> be sorely missed by all of us."
> --
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