By now I suspect most of you will
have seen the results of the OCA's election as it
has been posted to the web site since almost right
after the results we relayed to me. I would like
to thank very sincerely every one of the members
who stood for election - and although not everyone
could make it onto the board I hope that will not
dampen their enthusiasm and commitment to try again
next year. I would also like to thank all the members
for the great turnout for the voting. I am told
we had more members vote this year than any other
in the history of the club.
I do hope you were not too confused
when you received your special Ballot-only version
of the Sirius Astronomer. In hind-sight we realized
that you would be a little confused to get a single
page Sirius Astronomer Ballot just around the Christmas
holiday and would wonder where the real newsletter
was. In view of the successful turnout of voting
I think we will look to create a special Ballot
every year just as we did this year.
I personally look forward to the
year ahead of us and to working with the board members,
volunteers and general members on many aspects of
the club and our hobby. You do not have to be a
member of the OCA Board in order to help with club
activities or other functions. Please do come forward
and offer your support and ideas.
I have a confession. On the evening
of the January Anza Star Party I managed to break
the chain that opens the roof to the clubs observatory.
I basically moved the roof a few inches too far
and the it broke as I tried to move it back
I decided to share this experience
with all of you, as what happened as a result showed
me just why I love this club so much. Despite my
obvious mistake and my own feelings of stupidity
for being so careless, everyone who was around tried
their best to make sure I didn't feel bad about
what I had done - and also of course simply went
about the task of seeing how we could best fix the
problem. The weather was good enough that evening
to ensure there was no chance of rain - so we all
felt ok with leaving the roof open and looking at
how to close the roof and fix the chain in the light
of the morning.
The story ends on a happy note.
We managed to close the roof manually with the help
of many members such as Jim Hannam, Bob Buchhiem,
Russell Sipe and others in the light of day. The
chain was fixed temporarily by Don Lynn who believes
it will work for a good few months giving him enough
time to buy a new chain and fit it. Apparently the
existing chain is somewhat rusted and needs replacing
anyway.
For the past few months you have
been hearing about how the Kuhn is now controlled
through an updated interface, developed by John
Hoot, which allows us to use commercial off-the-shelf
planetarium software to literally point and click
to move the scope to whatever object we find of
interest. It is about time that other Star Members
get the benefit of this new interface and start
using the Kuhn again.
I have now completed the specific
updated documentation that describes how to operate
the telescope. Any Star Member, as long as they
have received the updated refresher course in the
past 18 months given by Chuck Lodoza, will now be
able to book the Kuhn and use it whenever they wish.
I used the scope myself again for
a group of Boy Scouts (about 30) who visited Anza
on Friday January 18th. I made double, triple, quadruple
sure that no obstructions were in the way, no-one
was standing beneath the chain, and that I did not
move the roof too far back. The roof opened and
closed perfectly that night and our visitors had
a wonderful experience. The next evening was another
outreach for Biola University hosted by Jim Benet
and James Thorpe with help from Barbara Toy. They
were operating the Kuhn based upon the new documentation
I developed - thus proving that any Star Member
will be able to run the scope after reading the
simple new documentation.
Liam Kennedy
"every day we are connecting ever more photons
of light from distant galaxies to the eyes, hearts,
minds and imaginations of our members and others
in our community."
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