[AZ-Observing] RTMC this Year
- From: Stan Gorodenski <stanlep@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: AZ-Observing <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 22:39:26 -0700
I left Monday morning, the 23rd, to attend the SAS meeting at Big Bear
Lake. This is a 375 mile drive from Dewey. It was not a fun trip this
time. I woke up Monday morning with diarrhea and a slightly nauseous
stomach. I took Imodium and that appeared to stop the diarrhea, but I
took a potty with me in case I had to go at an inopportune time. Luckily
that didn’t happen, but I still had a nauseous stomach all the way and
arrived at 9pm. I left at 11am.
I won’t go into the SAS meeting. After the meeting on Friday morning I
went to RTMC. The attendance was a huge surprise. It was the emptiest I
have ever seen it in all the years I have been attending. The first year
I attended was 1983. I went to every other meeting except for the last
two years and 1985. In 2009 I did not attend RTMC, but last year,
although I did not stay for the weekend, I was there Friday afternoon. I
did not observe anything unusual then. I believe one of the organizers
said only about 104, maybe it was 140, parties pre-registered this year.
Whatever the number was, there were not many people at all on Friday. I
took my 74 Dodge van to sleep in and was afraid I would not find my
favorite parking spot, but it was available.
The number of vendors was also way down. I have never seen it this empty
of vendors, but maybe back in 1983 it was. One good thing about it is
that the Telescope Field was once again reclaimed for telescopes. There
were a few vendor tents around the periphery, but not on the entire
field as it had been 3 years ago or so. Meade had a tent but Celestron
was not there. Meade had an 8” telescope as a door prize, but there was
no door prize from Celestron. A children Celestron telescope was a door
prize, but it was donated by the LA Astronomical Society, not Celestron.
I am not sure what the cause is of the low turnout in attendance and
vendors. About two years ago RTMC started having their meetings on
weekends favorable for the new moon instead of always on Memorial day
weekend. I was told that last year it was very cold, in the teens, and
it snowed. Maybe this affected this year’s attendance. Maybe PATS being
held in September in Pasadena is causing vendors to stay away from the
dust of RTMC and instead set up at PATS. At least Meade was set up.
Scott Roberts, a former vice president of Meade, had his company,
Explore Scientific, set up in front of the meeting hall. Scott Roberts
is in the white shirt.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-ExploreScientificBooth-3.jpg
As I mentioned, Meade was set up.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-MeadeTent.jpg
The alley to the Telescope Field had some vendors, but not as much as usual.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-ToTelescopeField.jpg
Although the attendance was lower than usual, there were some
telescopes. The following images shows some of them.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeAlleyTelescopes-1.jpg
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeAlleyTelescopes-2.jpg
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeAlleyTelescopes-4.jpg
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeAlleyTelescopes-6.jpg
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeField.jpg
This was a nice Dob on the Telescope Field that I think won a Merit award.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-Dob-TelescopeField.jpg
This was a large mirror telescope by the lake that won a Merit award.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-LakeSideTelescopes-1.jpg
Russ Genet is in this picture with his one meter telescope that he and
others designed and built. It won a merit award. The mirror is ¾” thick.
This is too thin to get a good figure for a mirror this size, but it is
not intended to be a visual telescope. It is intended to be a light
bucket to do photometry with. Russ started a project to develop a
portable 1.5 meter telescope. He could not obtain a 1.5 meter mirror
then and so he and the other participants used this 1 meter mirror to
learn from.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-RussGenetAnd40InchTelescope.jpg
I met Bob Pfaff at an IAPPP meeting in the late 1980’s. He never got
into photometry. He is instead a telescope maker. Him and Gerry Logan
continually bring new telescopes they made. Last year Bob entered this
one at Stellafane and won first place for his optics that he made. He
also won something like second or third place for the structural part of it.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-BobPfaffsTelescope.jpg
The telescope to the left is Gerry Logan’s telescope he made. He had
also entered it at Stellafane last year or the year before and won a
number of awards.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-GerryLogan-BobPfaff-Telescopes.jpg
This is Bob and Gerry. They are always together and have been making
telescopes and grinding and figuring mirrors and corrector plates for years.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-BobPfaff-GerryLogan.jpg
Ashley McDermitt is an old time attendee of RTMC going back to the era
of Cliff Holmes.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-AshleyMcDermitt.jpg
Ernie Williams is the Audio Visual operator at RTMC and has been doing
this as long as I can remember.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-ErnieWilliiams-AV.jpg
Many of us know Derald Nye.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-DeraldNye.jpg
Olivier Thizy is the owner of Shelyak, the company that makes amateur
spectrometers and the one I own. Here is him and his son.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-OlivierThizyAndSon.jpg
Jack Eastman used to work for Celestron. Here is a picture of him and me.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-JackEastman-Me-2.jpg
There was a mirror grinding machine going on at the beginners corner.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-MirrorGrindingMachine.jpg
It was very windy all the time at RTMC, but it was extremely windy
Saturday-Sunday night. This is the windiest I have ever seen it at RTMC.
Many made the same comment. The large canvas covering behind the meeting
hall was ripped off.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-BehindMeetingHallWindDamage.jpg
The cover over the concession stand in front of the meeting all was damaged.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-FrontOfMeetingHallWindDamage.jpg
All the vendor tents surrounding Telescope field were blown down except
for the Meade tent.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-MeadeTent-AfterWind.jpg
These are the other tents around Telescope Field that were blown down.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeFieldTentCollapse-1.jpg
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeFieldTentCollapse-2.jpg
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeFieldTentCollapse-3.jpg
This is a large tent, that has the name Celestron on it, that was blown
down. It had housed PlaneWave, Woodland Hills, and I think OPT. The
second image shows that the vendor(s) had not removed everything prior
to that night. Notice a small telescope on the ground.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeFieldTentCollapse-Celestron-2.jpg
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-TelescopeFieldTentCollapse-Celestron-3.jpg
The tent over the concession stand eating tables was damaged, but not
severely so.
http://users.commspeed.net/stanlep/Az-Observing/S-ConcessionStandWindDamage-1.jpg
I will be removing these images in a couple of weeks to conserve on the
web space my internet provider gives me.
Stan
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