Date: April 24-25, 1971
Attendance: 201 plus local club members
Now in its third year, the RTMC again met at Riverside Community College. The conference was still being referred to as the "Riverside Convention" or the 'West Coast Conference." Instruments, celestial photographs, and commercial products were displayed.
This was the first appearance by the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers who brought a 24" f/6.5.
Speakers
| Larry Burris, "Problems in Building Large Observatory Class Telescopes" | |
| James Dougherty, "Aluminizing and the Care of Optical Coatings" | |
| Robert P. Jensen, "Inexpensive Diamond-blade Generating of Tools, Mirrors and Lenses" | |
| Richard Buchroder, "16-1/2" f/15 'Argunov' Telescope" | |
| Arthur Leonard, "Wide-field Yolo Reflector" | |
| Harrison Sarrafian, "Aberrations of the Newtonian" | |
| Robert E. Cox, "How to Perform Optical Tests on Inexpensive Plane-parallel Glass" |
Merit Awards
| Cliff Livermore, 2nd Place for Uniqueness of Design - 18" Unobstructed Reflector | |
| Orien Ernest, 12-1/2" f/5 Newtonian | |
| John Dobson and Brian Rhodes, 2nd Place for Optics - 24" f/6.5 | |
| George McArthur, 3rd Place for Optics - 8" Newtonian | |
| John Dobson and Brian Rhodes, 2nd Place for Mechanics - 24" f/6.5 |