Meeting Memories

By Roger S. Kolman, Glen Ellyn, IL

AAVSO meetings always give members the opportunity to become reinvigorated, charge their batteries, and get ready to go out and observe, observe, observe! The 2006 meeting in Rockford was no exception to this rule. I left for the meeting, following the class I was teaching at Harper College - roughly 2 hours from Rockford - on Thursday afternoon. When I arrived at the Holiday Inn, I was greeted by Rebecca Turner, who provided information about the meeting. Since I had materials to prepare for my classes the next week (finals were coming up), I retired to my room for an evening of grading papers (boring!).

At about midnight, I was rather hungry, so I went to the Steak & Shake across the road - and there were Barry and Carol Beaman! We spent quality time catching up on the past year and looking forward to the meeting the next day. Friday morning was an outstanding workshop on publishing papers. This covered virtually all aspects of the topic, including poster presentations. I had heard that the workshops held at AAVSO meetings were superbly planned and executed, but experiencing one was incredible. I would encourage anyone who was not at the meeting, yet would like to know the ins and outs of scientific astronomical publication, to study the PowerPoint presentations of the papers that are available on-line on the AAVSO website.

I joined the Education and Outreach Committee for a working lunch. One of the missions of the AAVSO is to increase the number and quality of citizen scientists (as John Percy calls amateur devotees of the sciences) as well as the public-at-large. There will be interesting things happening with initiatives such as Hands-On Astrophysics, the Mentoring Program, and cooperative ventures with the Astronomical League in coming months.

The afternoon session contained a potpourri of interesting talks on a variety of subjects. Being a visual observer, I felt somewhat like a dinosaur listening to the marvelous things that are being done in the CCD world, efforts that rival those of professional astronomers. However, just as birds are the surviving relatives of the dinosaurs (more on dinosaurs later) and serve a purpose today, we visual observers still make the bulk of variable star observations and those observations are as important now as ever!

Friday evening was the Star-BQ at the Rockford club's observatory. Bill Dillon and I decided to be brave and drive ourselves rather than take the bus. Bill and I had shared a room at a previous meeting and had a lot to catch up on as we drove. Seeing old friends is one of the great draws of these meetings.

A late season cold front had come through the area and IT WAS COLD! How cold was it? Well, our contingent from Norway pointed out that it was like Norway in January! Brrr!

The dinner was fantastic! The Beamans really know how to throw a party! There was enough food to feed an army. Following dinner, we proceeded (quickly) to the warmth of the observatory where John Percy gave an informative and humorous talk entitled "Variable Stars, Gee Whiz!" in plain talk (and cartoons) he gave inspiration to the assembly.

Following the talk, a late session was held at the Holiday Inn lounge until closing time! Members of the group, whose names will be withheld to protect the guilty, shared many stories and anecdotes, some real, some imaginary.

Saturday morning consisted of the membership meeting and awards. We shared in congratulating our colleagues who reached observing milestones.

The paper session in the afternoon was, for the most part, the Aaron Price show. It is truly amazing to see the energy that this young man puts forth. The AAVSO is very fortunate to have someone of his vigor, capability, and enthusiasm at Headquarters.

One of the amusing moments at the meeting came during a talk given by Walter MacDonald II - A Dome on a Home: The Story of Winchester Observatory - a talk relating his adventures in building a dome in the attic of a house he had renovated. As he was describing the features of his fully automated facility, a member of the audience asked him how kindly his wife took to all this. When he related that he was single, the audience gave a knowing "Oh, well!" to him. You had to be there to appreciate it!

Saturday evening was spent at the Burpee Museum of Natural History. Yes, it is named for the Burpee Seed Company! They had a wonderful exhibit of prehistoric life including a complete skeleton of a young T-Rex named Jane. (I told you we would get back to dinosaurs.) I believe she won the honor of being the oldest variable star observer at the meeting.

After a sumptuous dinner, Dr. Karen Meech treated us to a talk on the Deep Impact project. She provided us with rare insights into the results of the mission to Comet Temple last year. This highly successful probe gave scientists a good idea of how comets form, as well as leaving questions needing answers. But, after all, isn't that what real science is about? It is not a static pursuit, but rather a dynamic, changing one.

Following the talk, President David Williams gave his agenda for the future of the AAVSO. (Included were his plans for world domination!) And so, the curtain dropped on the 2006 Spring Meeting of the AAVSO - at least the formal part. Once again, upon our return to Holiday Inn Central, an informal late night session was held, which included closing the lounge. Following that, several of us ended up in Mike Simonsen's room for a late night talk-fest. It was just like the old days!

It was a great pleasure to see many old friends and to make new acquaintances. I came away quite impressed with the professional leadership being provided by our new Director, Dr. Arne Henden and hope that he will have a long tenure. Viva Henden and Viva AAVSO!

More from Rockford

By Walter MacDonald II (MDW)
Winchester Observatory - Winchester, Ontario, Canada

The spring meeting was held this year at Rockford, Illinois. All I needed was sufficient justification to get myself to attend. Fortunately my sister had wanted me to visit her in Kansas City for some time, and Rockford is conveniently located about half way there from my home base in Canada. Then too, Arne had suggested I give a presentation on my robotic rooftop observatory at the meeting. So with the prospect of being able to combine two trips into one, to be more than just a spectator at the meeting, and to actually meet in person the many AAVSO'ers with whom I had previously only corresponded in cyberspace, I quickly registered for the spring meeting on the AAVSO website!

As luck would have it, the weather cooperated almost perfectly for my trip. My observatory experienced five clear nights in a row leading up to my departure for the meeting. Then there was nothing but cloud and rain at home for the two weeks I was away! Even better, I experienced no precipitation for almost my whole trip (just in Michigan and Ontario on the way back). So in retrospect, it turned out to be a great time to be away from home and on the road!

"Jane" the T-Rex at the Burpee Museum

I set out on my automotive odyssey at 6 a.m. on Wednesday (May 3rd). Twelve hours and about 1200 km later (including a couple of hours inching my way through Chicago's afternoon rush) I arrived at Rockford and checked in at the hotel. My roommate, Arto Oksanen, flew in from Finland and didn't arrive until around midnight local time (breakfast time for him!).

Thursday was the day for the big council meeting. There was some confusion about the start time for this meeting as it had been moved earlier in the morning. Rumor has it that at least one particularly enthusiastic council member thought (quite naturally and understandably) that the start time listed was in UT, and so found himself standing alone in the hotel lobby at 4 a.m.!

For those of us lucky enough to not be on council, Thursday was a free day. A tour of Rockford was offered by some of the locals, but I decided to strike out on my own and visit the Klehm Arboretum & Botanic Garden. It was interesting to see how the flora in Rockford was several weeks ahead of those in Ontario (Kansas City was similarly several weeks ahead of Rockford). Rockford also has a large number of apple trees all over town, and all were completely covered in blooms at this time, providing a very nice backdrop for our meeting.

Rockford is perhaps most famous for being the home of AstroPhysics, the makers of those nice APO refractors and telescope mounts. Alas, my fantasy of going on a factory tour (complete with free samples, of course) as part of the meeting did not materialize! However, one indirect contact we had with AstroPhysics occurred during Friday evening's outing to Lockwood Observatory. This facility belongs to the Rockford Amateur Astronomers and features a custom-built 10-inch AstroPhysics telescope in a 14-foot Ash dome. Unfortunately it was cloudy at the time so we didn't get to observe with it.

Friday's workshop on writing and publishing scientific papers was very informative. Even poster papers were covered, and there were a couple available at the back of the meeting room to look at during the meeting. As it turns out the meeting room was a "hot-spot" (not just because we were there!) so those who had brought their notebook computers with them could be online during the entire meeting. Whenever a speaker mentioned a website or a particular software package, anyone who was online could then surf or download right away. Technology can be quite wonderful at times!

The two scientific paper sessions (held Friday afternoon and Saturday) each had a really great range of speakers and topics and all were very interesting (kudos to the meeting organizers!). Fortunately for those who weren't in attendance, much of this material may be found on the AAVSO website. Some of the "extra-cool" topics (at least from my own biased perspective) involved extrasolar planetary transits, automated photometry, and the upcoming automated chart plotter; I'm sure also that everyone was particularly envious of Mario Motta's 32" scope. I know I was!

The hotel bar was well utilized for the late night portions of the unofficial program and many interesting discussions were had there. The highlight for me was being bear-hugged by Mike Simonsen. After 25 years of membership in the AAVSO, I have finally been officially initiated!

Time had flown by so fast, and all too soon the spring meeting was winding down. The final venue for the meeting was the Burpee museum. Here we spent some time browsing the exhibits (including dinosaurs!), then enjoying the cash bar, and finally finishing up with a world-class banquet.

For a few of us, Sunday morning brought a bonus feature - a tour of Yerkes Observatory, which had been arranged by Vance Petriew. Located in William's Bay, Wisconsin, Yerkes is only an hour's drive from Rockford. Our small group had a very complete tour of this great facility. We even got to go for a ride on the movable floor in the main dome! That alone was worth the price of admission! Afterwards we spent some time roaming the grounds. It was a great way to cap off such an enjoyable meeting!

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