Date: May 24-26, 1991
Attendance: 1,627With the July 11, 1991 Great
Solar Eclipse looming over us, this was truly the "Year of the Sun." Solar
telescopes were everywhere and talks and workshops of a solar theme were prominent on the
program. The full Moon kept the crowds down from previous years' highs. Also, many people
had to make the economic and vacation days choice between coming to the conference or
going to the total solar eclipse.
Despite the Moon and fewer telescopes participants came
away with a lot of valuable information. One of the technological highlights was Kevin
Medlock's and Vance Chin's prototype CCD camera running on a fully automated 8" f/3
Newtonian. The interference of the Moon did not prevent it from whipping from object to
object picking off galaxies and clusters.
Speakers
 |
Carter Roberts, "Solar Eclipse
Photography" |
 |
Richard Combs, "Baffling Newtonians for
Improved Contrast" |
 |
John Sanford, "A Little on Image Processing
with the P.C." |
 |
Joe Perry, Jr., "The 'Rail' Telescope
Solution" |
 |
Michael Stecker, "The Practice of Long
Exposure astrophotography with SBIG's ST-4 Star Tracker" |
 |
Phil Simpson, "Strapdown Inertial
Navigator" |
 |
Ben Mayer, "The Polascope Test" |
 |
Norm Sperling, "How Little Things Have Changed
in the Telescope Business" |
Merit Awards
 |
Donald E. Clark Jr., Elegantly Designed and
Constructed Alt-Azimuth Telescope - 17.5" Dobsonian |
 |
Wayne M. Schmidt, Interesting Concepts in a
Motorized Observer's Binocular Chair |
 |
Moe Ashley, Excellent Realization of a Classical
Newtonian Telescope - 12.5 Inch Newtonian |
 |
James Stevens, Significant Advance in Ultraportable
Design - 10" Dobsonian backpack telescope |
Honorable Mentions
 |
Steven Overholt, Ultra-portable 22" telescope |
 |
Barry B. Thompson, Creative Educational Tool - 1991
eclipse flip book |
 |
James Ed Grissom, Optical Performance Enhancing
Components - Spider/draft fan for 6" f/8 Newtonian |
 |
Larry Owings, Indexed and dovetailed sliding weight
- 14.5" f/5.5 |
 |
Jim Hannum, Metal Craftsmanship - 8" f/5
Newtonian |
Clifford W. Holmes Award
 |
Rick Shaffer |
Warren Estes Award
 |
David Levy, Minerva |
Clyde Tombaugh Award
 |
John Dobson |
|