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Date: May 24-26, 1991
Attendance: 1,627

With 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

The Clever Sun Scope II Sunspot Viewer which uses a binocular objective to project a solar image on to the white shadowed screen Steve Lelhnowsky with his 12.5" Newtonian Steve Leghnowsky's portable lighted map box Larry McDavid with his eclipse mount which supports a Questar and Canon Video Camera Pierre Schwarr sitting in his 8" binocular/chair mount The binocular/chair mount in action James Stevens with his ultra-portable 10" Cliff Holmes A highlight of the conference was an eclipse photography workshop with Carter Roberts, Cliff Holmes, Steve Edberg, John Sanford, and Derald Nye fielding questions from the audience at the outdoor chapel Donald Clark received a Merit Award for his 17.5" Dobsonian Steven Overholt received a Merit Award for his 22" Dobsonian Steve Collett with his variable height observing chair People crowd around the CCD demonstration put on by Kevin Medlock, Ron Story and Vance Chin The 8" f/3 telescope used by Kevin Medlock, Ron Story and Vance Chin