[sac-board] Re: Herschel II Proposal

Probably someone needs to review the current membership requirements of 
the A.L., just to have updated information.
I would admit my perception of the basic club membership parts vs. 
benefits is out of date. (There is more to my opinions, of course...)

I concur that the present setup of the SAC observing programs is 
probably  good as is.
 
The other part, what sort of an award for completing the Herschel II, is 
a bit like the old saw about giving somebody a fancy clock upon their 
retirement.... they ain't gonna check the time that close any more!  One 
might imagine that having seen ALL that FFN stuff, a dedicated deep-sky 
nut, errrrmmm observer might want to do something else... (?)
I think an award should be tailored to the interests of the particular 
individual.  This represents the culmination of an awful lot of time and 
effort invested....

(This from someone is unlikely to complete such a program....)
Cheers,
Gene
(17250)

AJ Crayon wrote:
> There are several e-mails on this topic and I'd like to address the topics 
> and positions with this one message.
>
> In regards to joining the AL; no one seems to feel this is a good idea, nor 
> does there seem to be enough interest to investigate joining.  So we drop 
> this topic.
>
> As far as observing programs are concerned we should keep them the way they 
> are without any tinkering.  This means the H400, 1000 New and 110 Beyond the 
> NGC stay as they are.  We should also support anyone completing the HII list 
> with some sort of an award.
>
> The above sounds quite reasonable to me and I have no problems with taking 
> those positions.
>
> The question that remains open is what kind of award should we present to 
> anyone crazy enough :)) to complete the HII program.  As Deep Sky Chairman 
> I'm willing to accept and review the observations for correctness and 
> authenticity.  That's still lots of fun.  Yet what does the award consist 
> and should there be a budget?
>
> I'd also like to thank everyone for responding, you've been a great help.
>
> AJ Crayon
> Phoenix, AZ
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tom Polakis" <tpolakis@xxxxxxx>
> To: <sac-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 7:36 AM
> Subject: [sac-board] Re: Herschel II Proposal
>
>
> ---- Jack Jones <telescoper@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>   
>> It may be better and simpler to just ignore the H II as we do the Beyond
>> The NGC list (H II and any other lists that come along, like Arp,
>> Hickson, etc etc) and cut off the 1000 list with the Herschel 400 as we
>> have it now.
>>     
>
> Now that I read Jack's point above, that seems like it might be the best 
> club policy.  A while back, I thought I'd begin the Herschel II list, and 
> spent a couple nights observing a couple dozen objects from that list.  With 
> all due respect to the very accomplished Portland club members, I concluded 
> that it's not a very good observing list.  This statement from the Rose City 
> Astronomers' Web site gives an idea why:
>
> "The 400 objects in this program consist of 323 galaxies, 41 open clusters, 
> 21 nebulae, 9 planetary nebula, 3 cluster-nebula, and 3 globular clusters. "
> That's 81% galaxies and 10% open clusters, and 9% "other stuff."  In 
> contrast, when I created my own lists for my Celestial Portraits series in 
> Astronomy magazine, the 798 objects broke down as follows: 38% galaxies, 19% 
> open clusters, 11% planetary nebulae, 10% globular clusters, 22% other 
> stuff.
>
> I learned early on that the Herschel II has far too many galaxies, and lacks 
> a lot of much more interesting objects.  Further, the most southerly object 
> on the Herschel II list is at -30 degrees dec.  That sure seems like a waste 
> of interesting territory in the stinger of Scorpius and southern Puppis.
>
> Perhaps SAC members should not be discouraged from taking on the Herschel 
> II, but maybe it's best not to bother with it as a formal club program.  Joe 
> still deserves an observing award for going through it, of course.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>

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