CN3y Sharing the Sky Weblog No. 16
A Fabulous General Assembly
Getting together with fellow stargazers is one of the best things about being a stargazer. Yesterday, while flying home from the General Assembly of the RASC, I realized how much fun I had in the preceding few days. This year, the 10-year-old New Brunswick Center sponsored the General Assembly. Held on the University of New Brunswick campus in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the program updated its delegates on astronomical advances, on the latest trends in observing hardware, and a lot on needs and methods of astronomical education. One of the highlights of this meeting was a presentation by the astronomy group at the Miramachi Rural School. These young people, with the help of Adam Hayward, their enthusiastic teacher, have built an observatory, installed a telescope, and have turned their astronomy class into an interactive project that has most of Miramachi under the stars. These children presented something so magical and exciting that their presentation earned them a standing ovation from the delegates.
Most of us stayed at the Joy Kidd residence on the University of New Brunswick campus, which was also the site of the BBQ dinner and the several parties that featured astronomical songs sung by Peter Jedicke and his sidekick, me. The Wu Center, where all our meetings were held, was comfortably air conditioned.
At lunch on that day, I was honored to be able to present my paper “A Nightwatchman’s Journey: My Life and Hard Times” as a comet seeker.” It was a retrospective of the 45 years I have spent comet hunting so far. For the first time talking to a national audience, I also recounted the highlights of the observatory crisis in 1967, when, at the age of 18. I was nearly expelled from the RASC. I do recall deciding to give up astronomy at that time, but I am glad I didn’t. The crisis was precipitated when Isabel Williamson accused me of bresaking the centre’s antique barograph. My repeated denials were ignored, and I was nearly expelled. It was a difficult time, but ten years later I began a correspondence with Miss Williamson that turned into a friendship that lasted to the end of her life in 2000. That friendship included a conversation about the RASC National awards during which I discovered that she had never received the RASC service award. Miss Williamson did receive it a few months later. All in all, Isabel K. Williamson was one of the central figures in the RASC during the generation before ours. Her efforts and strength of character have recently been noted by the Society.
A real highlight was a visit to what is likely the first astronomical observatory in Canada. The Brydone-Jack observatory is named after William Brydone-Jack, a professor of mathematics and later president of the university. Thanks to Brydone-Jack’s efforts, Fredericton was the first location in Canada to have its longitude accurately calculated.
This six-inch diameter refractor might be the telescope mounted in the oldest observatory in Canada. D. Levy Photo.
There was a central personal reason for this meeting, said Chairman Paul Gray. It was a thank you party for two of his mentors, outgoing national President David Lane and incoming President Mary Lou Whitehorne. He ranks these two highly on his list of mentors who helped him get into astronomy and keep him there, and especially into his beloved hobby of supernova searching, which has now yielded several discoveries of supernovae shining from distant galaxies.
The view from Joy Kidd residence, University of New Brunswick. D. Levy photo.
However, more than anything else, Gray sees the RASC as a national family, filled with people who love the sky and love to watch it.
The annual RASC pyramid. Levy is on bottom row, second from left. Photo by Dianne Jedicke.
This is the key to enjoying the RASC. Besides looking up at the night sky, it is the people we meet and the friendships we make that render it all worthwhile.