Date: May 25-27, 1979
Attendance: 728
| THE 1979 RIVERSIDE TELESCOPE MAKERS
CONFERENCE By Ashley Thomas McDermott; Professor, College of the Desert (reprinted from the Griffith Observer - May 1980) |
The eleventh annual Riverside Telescope Maker's Conference was held over the Memorial Day weekend at Camp Oakes near Big Bear, California. Co-sponsored by the Riverside Astronomical Society and the San Bernardino Valley Astronomers, this conference has become one of the most important events in the amateur astronomy calendar. Since its inception eleven years ago, the result of the creative organization and hard work of Clifford Holmes, the conference has become the biggest, and perhaps the most successful event of its type ever held, with more than 750 astronomers and their families attending. Several commercial exhibits were present, including Edmund Scientific and Optical Techniques represented by Leo Hendell, Draco Industries, Celestron International, and Roger Tuthill, A number of valuable door prizes were given away during the sessions on Saturday and Sunday.
Camp Oakes, at an altitude of 7,200 feet, with clear evenings and dark skies this year, provided an excellent site for the conference, with more than 200 telescopes on display. Many of these telescopes and their accessories were evaluated for optical and mechanical design and excellence. After initial welcomes and announcements by Bob Stephens, President of the Riverside Astronomical Society, Phil Gilbert, President of the San Bernardino Valley Astronomers, and Ashley Thomas McDermott, Professor of Astronomy at the College of the Desert, the conference started off Saturday afternoon with a most interesting presentation by Lee Najman, from Long Island, New York, who spoke on his super sturdy telescope mounting. Entitled "The Long Island Rock, a Telescope Mount," it truly had to be one of the most massive mountings for a twelve inch telescope ever built. Lee is one the staff of Star and Sky magazine. This presentation was followed by an illustrated historical review by the author entitled, "The History of Fixed Telescopes." It reviewed polar horizontal, vertical, and telescopes of all types, including equatorial coudes and noted their advantages and disadvantages compared to the more conventionally mounted astronomical telescopes.
After a short hospitality break, and a drawing for several of the door prizes, Bob Stephens of the Riverside Astronomical Society gave a very enjoyable talk on the construction and design of a very ingenious and inexpensive dry ice cold camera that was made out of easy to fabricate plastic parts and which used drying agents rather than solid plugs or vacuums to keep the film from frosting up. Clyde Tichenor of the Polaris Astronomical Society followed with a cordially invited repetition of his beautiful demonstration of optical principles using laser and other kings of light, Bob Schack of the Chabot Telescope Makers, located at Chabot Observatory in Oakland, gave a very instructive and well Illustrated lecture on how to safely clean lenses and mirrors of various types using several kinds of cleaning agents.
The Saturday afternoon session concluded with a beautiful and easy to understand talk on optical errors in various types of cassegrain optical systems. Robert E. Fisher spoke on the optical merits of Maksutov, classical cassegrain, Schmidt cassegrain and Richey-Chretien systems, and completely illustrated the entire show with colored, easy to read overhead projector viewgraph transparencies. Immediately following Bob's very well received talk, a monster group photograph was taken of the members of the conference on the telescope field.
After dinner, and a drawing for some of the door prizes donated by several commercial exhibitors, the conference continued with a talk by David Chandler of Astroscopics on "Planetary Motion as Seen From the Earth." After a show and tell period, which included a short talk by Orion Ernst on his latest Cold Camera, the conference split up into two sections. Out on the telescope field there was held a superb star party with a dark night sky and a number of galaxies and nebulae on display, while in the auditorium, other members of the conference were treated to a presentation of the motion picture of the Jules Verne classic, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."
Next Sunday morning, after breakfast, saw a heavily attended astronomical swap meet hosted by the Riverside Telescope Maker's Conference. Formerly hosted by the Monterey Park Astronomical Society, Clifford Holmes and the conference directors have decided to make this event a permanent feature of future Riverside Telescope Maker's Conferences.
After lunch the Sunday afternoon section of the conference opened with a beautifully illustrated and inspirational talk on Stellafane by Ben Mayer of the Polaris Observatory Association. Ben would also deliver a well-attended and greatly enjoyable talk on the 1979 eclipse over Canada later that evening. Ben's display of his new television-coupled Blink Comparator was also one of the hits of the conference.
Following Ben Mayer's talk, Bruce Smith of Salt Lake, Utah, gave an excellent talk on his novel and highly accurate telescope drive system, which uses the principle of the Indian sand clock in its drive. A startlingly ingenious system, it drew a number of comments from the conference. Following Bruce's outstanding presentation, the conference saw another hospitality break, and yet another drawing of door prizes, which included a telescope mirror cell donated to the conference, drawing by Ray Coutchie of the Polaris Observatory Association.
The papers session for Sunday afternoon reconvened with a presentation on the precision fabrication of driving gears by means of special tools and machines, beautifully illustrated by Thomas Mathis of Vacaville, California, and a lovely slide show recounting the recent star parties and other amateur astronomical events in the Pacific northwest, recounted by Rich Peel and others of the Tacoma Astronomical Society.
Ray Coutchie, of the Polaris Observatory Association spoke about his device that he designed to turn cameras on and off automatically, and to advance the film automatically. In some ways a simpler alternative to Ben Mayer's ARCTU, Ray's talk was entitled "A Simple lntervalometer." Following Ray's presentation was the final main paper of the Sunday afternoon session. Roger Tuthill's talk was looked forward to with great interest. Entitled "A Computerized Telescope". Roger demonstrated his prototype equipment which he had installed on a Celestron Eight Telescope. The coordinates of a celestial object could be keyed into the small mini-computer, or catalog numbers of some 200 pre-programmed objects could be keyed into the computer, and the computer would then quickly slew the telescope to the object in the sky with approximately one minute of arc accuracy. Roger explained the operation of the equipment and the various functions of its component parts and then demonstrated its operation. He noted that the telescope must be accurately aligned on the north pole for the system to work.
Arthur Leonard, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, emeritus at the University of California, Davis, won the special $150.00 Astronomy in America award for his contribution to amateur astronomy. Cliff Holmes, director of the conference, made the award to Art
Astroworks, Shaeffer and Teledrive were all present to demonstrate their telescope mountings and drive corrector systems. Through the gracious courtesy of Dr. Harold Zirin, the Big Bear Solar observatory was accessible to tours from the conference, and through the gracious courtesy of Mr. Bill Hornaday, the nearby Juniper Park Observatory, with its research 16-inch telescope was once again made available to the visiting participants. In spite of the gasoline shortage, the eleventh annual Riverside Telescope Maker's Conference was the best attended conference yet held in the series. If the trend continues, the twelfth annual Riverside Telescope Maker's Conference to be held on the Memorial Day weekend in 1980 could see as many as 800 astronomers and their families up at Camp Oakes having the time of their lives.
Speakers
|
Lee Najman, "Sturdy Telescope Mounting" |
|
Ashley McDermott, "The History of Fixed Telescopes" |
|
Robert Stephens, "Cold Camera Construction " |
|
Clyde Tichenor, "Optical Principles" |
|
Bob Schack, "Cleaning Lens and Mirrors" |
|
Robert E. Fisher, "Wave Front Errors and Other Optical Oddities" |
|
Eugene Cross, "Limitations to Telescopic Performance" |
|
David Chandler, "A New Way to Watch the Planets" |
|
Orion Ernst, "A New Cold Camera" |
|
Ben Mayer, "Stellafane 1978" |
|
Bruce Smith, "The Smith Sand Drive" |
|
Alan Gorski, "Color Slide Enhancement" |
|
Thomas Mathis, "Precision Fabrication of Driving Gears" |
|
Rich Peel, "Astronomical Star Parties of the Pacific Northwest" |
|
Ray Coutchie, "A Simple Intervalometer" |
|
John LaBorde, "An Apodizing Screen" |
|
Roger Tuthill, "A Computerized Telescope" |
Merit Awards
|
Ben Mayer - VIBLICOM blink comparator |
|
Allan Guthmiller - 10" f/4.8 Newtonian |
|
Vance Chin - 6" f/4 Newtonian |
|
Blayne Lequeux - Accessory light box |
|
San Jose Astronomical Association - CID TV camera system |
|
Steve Kufeld - 20 X 80 binocular mounting |
|
Pierre Schwarr - 16-1/2" f/4 Newtonian observing chair |
|
Duane Kneehouse - 5" f/4.25 Newtonian |
|
Arnold Schwartz - 8" f/6 Newtonian |
|
Malcolm Brown - 6 " f/15 Maksutov |
|
Mark Wagner - 10" f/30 solar telescope |
|
Duane Niehaus - 5" f/4.25 |
|
Douglas Eisenstein - 4-1/4" f/4 Newtonian |
Astronomy for America Award (later renamed Clifford W. Holmes
Award)
|
Arthur Leonard |
|
Bruce Smith - 8" f/7 Newtonian with a sand drive |
