[sac-board] Re: Wally Brown

Rick (and others),
Attached is a scan of the obituary for Wally Brown (inserted into a Word 
doc) which appeared in the Sunday, June 10, 2007 Arizona Republic. Below 
are some short notes on Wally's important contributions to SAC in its 
early years (also attached as a Word document).
In Memoriam -- Wally Brown
Notes by Gene Lucas (17250)

Wally J. Brown, Jr. moved to the Valley after working as a successful 
copy writer and creative director for a major advertising firm in New 
York City. Thereafter he ran his own free-lance advertising business 
here in Phoenix. He was a talented artist as well as a clever 
advertising man and effective speaker, and used those skills to help the 
club. He joined SAC in its early years (about 1980) and enthusiastically 
promoted observing skills for beginners (which was his own experience 
level at that time). He observed mainly with a Celestron C-8, and 
developed a number of clever add-ons to aid in observing, including a 
strap-on eyepiece and accessories case that attached to the Celestron 
tripod, and an electric dew eliminator (several years before the latter 
item became commercially available).

Wally organized and led the SAC Deep Sky Group meetings for a number of 
years, encouraging the practice of members collecting and sharing their 
observations. Beginning in 1981, Wally organized the first Messier 
Marathons for the club (initially at the club?s observing site at 
Fessler's Ranch, north of town, and east of what is now the community of 
Anthem). He wrote and published an outstanding booklet on observing the 
Messier objects, illustrated with his own artwork and finder charts. He 
also wrote a number of articles in the Newsletter on the Messier 
objects, as well as brochures introducing the Club to the public. He 
also conducted private classes for beginners at the Wilson Camera shop 
(with sales director Jack Johnston) in Phoenix. From the class materials 
came an outstanding privately-published booklet in 1984, titled "Astro 
Class Classics". The booklet included lots of Wally's illustrations, 
with many sections devoted to taking the "mystery" out of the ways of 
the sky, including finder charts for all the Messier objects, notes on 
when the M objects were available in the sky, interesting sky fields, a 
list of 100 color-contrasting double stars and how to observe them, a 
list of three dozen select non-Messier NGC objects (with finder 
sketches), and so forth. (The booklet was offered to several publishers, 
but was never reprinted.) Later, Wally and Bob Buckner sponsored a 
1,000-object Observing Award program (with ads in Sky & Telescope). In 
addition to SAC, Wally was the founder of the Arizona Darts League, and 
was a competitive darts player locally.

 From the SAC Deep Sky Group April 1981 Messier Marathon booklet, here 
is a short poem authored by Wally:

"Discount the lesson
so many learn
from pondering the celestial sea;
The one where countless
wonders seen
seed a sense of insignificant me.
I assure you,
the insignificant
would sit a lesser seat than we.
Indeed,
wondrous significance
attends the root ability."

Wally Brown, April 1981

Wally passed away on May 27, 2007, aged 75.


Rick Tejera wrote:

>All,
>Although I did not know Wally, I do know from conversations that he was an
>active club member a while back. As is my custom, I'd like to run an In
>Memoriam in the upcoming issue. Does anyone have any Photo's of Wally,
>preferably with his telescope? Also if anyone would care to write a few
>words about him, It would help me out tremendously.
>
>TIA
>
>Clear Skies
>
>Rick Tejera
>
>President, Editor SACnews
>
>Saguaro Astronomy Club
>
>Phoenix, Arizona
>
>www.saguaroastro.org <http://www.saguaroastro.org/> 
>
>saguaroastro@xxxxxxx 
>
>
>
>
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>


-- Binary/unsupported file stripped by Ecartis --
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-- File: WALLY BROWN.doc


-- Binary/unsupported file stripped by Ecartis --
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-- File: Wally Brown - In Memoriam.doc

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