Tag Archives: RASC

AstroBlog 2019, outing #24 – Star Party at CASM

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 6 2019

The nights are longer and colder, but yesterday (October 5th) was International Astronomy Day so we set up for a night at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum. It’s not quite as good as Carp as we can’t turn the parking lot lights up, but we set up a little farther away on the grass (I had thought we would set up on the pavement as we did one other time, but we were all on the grass and a clear patch of gravel). I was initially worried about dew but had no issues for the night.

One of the best parts of events at CASM is I don’t have to be the event marshal. 🙂 I just go and observe. I helped out on the social media side for announcements and promotions, but that was all. Chris in our group is the lead for liaison with the Museum and did solar observing during the day.  » Read the rest

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AstroBlog 2019, outing #23 – Star Party in Carp

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 6 2019

I had my doubts about the star party scheduled for September 21 in Carp, including the fact that I’m a bit tired of organizing them. I don’t mind GOING, but I’d much prefer to go with Jacob, set up his scope too, and then just be able to leave when we want to, even if only there for an hour or so. If I go as an event marshal, I have to stay all night. I had no other marshals seemingly available for this one, so I went without the cub. However, when I got there, one of the other marshals had shown up and already had all the cones set out, etc. Awesome!

I set up in a different spot than normal, and parked in the upper bowl just in case I decided to bail early. However, I was surprised that the location of the setup changed the experience for the night.  » Read the rest

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AstroBlog 2019.002.1 Best. Viewing. Night. Ever.

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 7 2019

I don’t want to beat a dead horse about past problems, but the context is really important for this post. Let’s just say that I have had some challenges with getting proper alignment with my scope. And my posts have reflected that…Finally learning with the Celestron NexStar 8SE led to some success, but then eventual frustration such as Attempt #0 of 5 to save my hobby, and then some more success with Solving alignment problems with the Celestron NexStar 8SE. When I was done, I wrote up all my lessons learned as Best alignment process for the Celestron NexStar 8SE, and it is one of my most popular pages on my website. I don’t however always listen to myself, and if I’m in a rush, I can forget or skip a step and my subsequent alignment is hit or miss. Last year wasn’t a good year, and I am determined that this year, I WILL PERSIST!  » Read the rest

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AstroBlog 2019.001.1 Taking stock of last year

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 2 2019

Usually, I am out of the astronomy business from sometime in October to sometime in May. Last year, I did both April at the start of the year (Kicking off my 2018 astronomy season with two outings) and November for local RASC events, partly as I’m the Star Party Coordinator and I try to show up for all the events. But I didn’t accomplish much last year overall, and April and November were pretty cold.

But I have astro issues, so to speak. It’s practically a saga unto itself:

If you read all those, you would see me struggling with alignment problems, and finally — FINALLY!!!  » Read the rest

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Second Annual Survey of RASC Centres About Public Observing Events Held In 2018

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 28 2019

This is the second annual survey of RASC Centres about their public observing events and pertains to events held in 2018. The survey has been streamlined from last year to more clearly focus on public observing events rather than outreach in general or members-only observing, but still retaining links to both. Now, the survey only contains 14 short questions broken down as:

  • Q1 RASC Centre profile;
  • Q2-Q6 Public observing offerings in that Centre;
  • Q7-Q11 Infrastructure at public observing events
  • Q12-14 What worked in 2018 or what’s planned for 2019

For last year’s survey, I attempted to track down the public observing representative for each of the RASC Centres, and emailed them to invite them to participate. For this year’s survey, I used the old email list, our National Representative shared the survey invite with the National Committee members, and we made links with the Youth Coordinator whose duties also link to to public observing, youth outreach, and learning events.  » Read the rest

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