[AZ-Observing] Re: RTMC 2008 activities and weather report


gene lucas wrote:

>There was not much re: telescope making at RTMC this year.  There were 
>only a couple of talks of interest (IMHO), including Roger Ceragioli 
>from the Steward Mirror Lab speaking on Bernhard Schmidt and his optics 
>(the Goff Memorial lecture).  Chris Butler (Griffith Observatory) gave 
>an excellent, amusing and off-center look at Astronomy for the Sat. 
>evening talk.  Only 25 scopes were entered in the merit awards (probably 
>an all-time low), and only two Merit Awards were given.  (No Warren 
>Estes Award this year.)
>  
>

You misunderstood, Gene. Normally there are 25 scopes entered and six 
awards given out. This year there were only six entered and so only two 
awards were given out. One of them was to Bob Pfaff for his interesting 
Schmidt-Cassegrain design that eliminated coma. Bob had attended the 
IAPPP meetings at Big Bear Lake many years ago. That is how I met him. 
He discovered that if you moved the corrector plate about 15" in front 
of the secondary, it pretty much did away with coma. According to him, 
the reason Meade, Celestron, and other telescope makers have not adopted 
this is that it makes for a longer OTA. Each year he comes up with 
something new. Him and Gerry Logan, who both come up and camp together, 
are two real prolific telescope makers with many new ideas..
Stan

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