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	Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:03:09 PST
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:03:09 -0800 (PST)
From: Tim Crawford <tcarchcape

Recruitment.

The typical average observer has to travel from their
light polluted home area (one to two hours or more) to
sites that offer reasonably dark skies, set up there
equipment and then begin viewing; the majority of
these folks, even when they have an interest in making
a scientific contribution, simply do not have enough
scope time to even satisfy their eye candy needs. 
Therefore, the typical average observer, without a
CCD, is unlikely to be a prospect (yes, there are
always exceptions… just few and far between).

As we all know, if you have a CCD there is little need
to travel to a dark site to accomplish VS observing as
most observers can do their observing from their
backyard, regardless of light pollution issues.  Folks
that own CCD’s should represent a good recruitment
pool.

In some respects I think there is a bit of an
evolution for most all observers in that most of us
start out hooked on eye candy (as it should be!). 
Eventually, many observers look for other
opportunities to expand their scope time beyond eye
candy, especially those fortunate enough to have an
observatory close at hand.

>From my perspective these are the folks best
contributions.

And, from my observations, it appears to me that the
majority of the active VS observers have some sort of
permanent set up or a clever system of quickly getting
the equipment out and up and running.

I have said it before and I will say it again, that
the folks with a permanent or semi permanent setup or
the most likely prospects to be sought out.  The next
most significant class of prospects is those that
already own a CCD (or thinking about purchasing one)
together with visual observers who live in a darkened
area.

How can the AAVSO reach out to these folks?

For starters here is a listing of some folks who have
permanent installations

Amateur Astronomical Observatories:

http://obs.nineplanets.org/obs/obslist.html

Yahoo has a club with 1893 members: Homemade
Astronomical Observatories:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Observatories/

These are two that come immediately to mind.

CCD and perspective CCD owners can be reached through
the many “Imaging the sky” Conferences that are held
around the country.  Have an AAVSO member volunteer to
make a presentation. In addition, some of the larger
clubs have SIG’s for CCD’s or those interested in
science and would welcome a presentation.

some of the CCD mfg’s for a direct mailing type of
activity

To a certain extent, I think Frank hit the nail on the
head when he wrote:

All they need is to be made aware of it and they will
jump in with both feet up to their necks and never
look back…etc…”

It is all about targeted marketing with any product or
service.

‘nough said

To The Stars

Tim Crawford  CTX

http://homepage.ma.com/windwalker1/ACObserv.htm



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