Re: Goto Nixed for Club by AAVSO Oldtimer

eddie <P.EdwardMurray@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Right on Margo...

Yes, I'm a young 50..don't look it and it's just awe inspiring that
there is so much diversity in equipment and literature and media and
associations that we have had since the 1980's that we didn't have in
the '60's.

Hi, Eddie.

It's indeed amazing how technologies have diversified, sometimes with
interesting "anticipations" in earlier decades. For example, I've seeen
articles on short-focus reflectors from the '40's and 50's which seem to
me and others to celebrate precisely the kind of rich-field viewing
that we associate with the "Dobsonian revolution" which took hold in
the '80's.

I got started in astronomy when I was a tike and joined my first club
in high school in Ohio and after college, moving to the Philly area,
joined DVAA and then BMAA at it's inception in 1985.

This consistent dedication is something I have to admire. I got started
as a child around the time of Sputnik, and got a reflector around 4-1/4"
or so which I used from our apartment backyard to look at the Moon and
Pleiades; but regrettably didn't keep up the observing as a teenager or
young adult, although I still read astronomy and cosmology from time to
time and joined with friends in viewing some "special event": a meteor
shower, or eclipse. However I've gotten back into regular observing
over the last year or so is another story: but I admire your more
consistent involvement over the years.

The simple fact is that there is so much to do astronomically and so
many avenues that you can take to explore it, that it's really
extremely stupid to not be very open minded about go to style
equipment.

One point is that go-to may be more like the methods used by a typical
professional astronomy who directs things by computer, and may not know
the constellations visually.

I don't see why, for any certificate or the like, we might not have two
or more categories based on how the objects were found: by visual
starhopping, automated go-to, manual or digital setting circles, etc.

I would much rather see the energy put into fighting Light Pollution
which threatens
ALL OF US including the professionals.

Agreed! Recently I read a lament by a member of my club, Sacramento
Valley Astronomical Society, that one of our dark-sky sites was getting
impacted from a suburban auto mall. This is a situation where reducing
energy-inefficient or unnecessary lighting will benefit everyone: urban
observers like me searching for DSO's among the city lights; suburban
people for whom that auto mall might be very bad news; and also the
dark-sky observers where new or larger light domes are a real threat.

But I think there just maybe a light at the end of a tunnel at least
in terms of light pollution because it's a direct source of Global
Warming because it's wasted electricity producing light.

Yes: "Save our planet; Save our skies!"

But it may still take a while...

I've seen advice from one deep-sky astronomer: it will get worse before
it gets better. There are pleasant success stories from some regions,
for example a Canadian project with government sponsorship to protect
an observatory and improve energy efficiency. The question is which
trend can prevail over the next decade or two.


And as the clock ticks....

We draw ever closer to losing Cherry Springs State Park, one of the
nation's first dark sky parks, one of the last two public places that
are truly dark on the east coast.


That is sad. I should look into this.

Most appreciatively,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@xxxxxxxxxx
Lat. 38.566 Long. -121.430

.

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