RTMC, continued

The Riverside Telescope Maker’s Conference is a place for firsts. Most notably, it is the place where amateur astronomers show off their home built telescopes. A few years ago, binocular chairs started cropping up at the conference. These aren’t just chairs with arms to stabilize your 10 x 50 binoculars. The chairs some enterprising telescope makers are building sport 4" to 6" double telescopes mounted so that the eyepieces of the two scopes join centrally to fit the eyes like a regular binocular. Since they are fixed on their stable platform, a specially designed chair that can follow the motion of the heavens, they give a telescopic binocular vision of the universe. Wow!http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://nightvisionastronomy.com/gallery/images/Stellafane-2008-003.jpg&imgrefurl=http://nightvisionastronomy.com/gallery/index.html&h=600&w=800&sz=276&tbnid=zWgZaNetVGBWzM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&docid=od9wYtJFE1sRoM&sa=X&ei=eA2JT7b-I8SbiQKpnLT_Cw&ved=0CGoQ9QEwAA&dur=195

Another first is related to the fact that so many notable professionals attend the conference, freely sharing the latest information on astronomical events. Folks at one of the conferences a number of years ago got a chance at following comet Hale-Bopp early after its discover. That’s because both Mr. Hale and Mr. Bopp shared the stories of their almost simultaneous discovery at the 1996 RTMC. Their incoming comet was but a faint light in Scorpio at the time. Ordinary stories of great finds abound among astronomers. Alan Hale had been at his house waiting for the earth to rotate enough for him to find a different comet he wanted to recover. It was blocked by his home. While waiting, he scanned the southern sky from his driveway and noticed a point of light that didn’t belong in M-70.  After double checking his maps, he called Cambridge, the clearing house for new astronomical finds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bureau_for_Astronomical_Telegrams

At the same time, Tom Bopp was out in the desert testing his friend’s newly built telescope. He, too, noticed the pale smudge that didn’t belong in Sagittarius. Although he had discovered it before Hale, his drive home cost him time, so that when he called Cambridge, he was ten minutes behind Hale. Both men, therefore, got their names on the comet, with Tom’s name trailing. How do I know? I spent most of the night of the 1996 May conference playing with the telescope that had been used in the discovery, while Tom Bopp and his friend reminisced the find. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale%E2%80%93Bopp

An earlier year the conference was abuzz with supernova highlights. That year Supernova 1993J had made its debut in M-81. Since the telescope conference takes place in May, and the supernova was discovered in March every homemade and store bought telescope on the fields at Camp Oakes was trained on the newly discovered exploding star. http://www.astropix.com/HTML/C_SPRING/M81.HTM

Earlier yet was the discovery of Comet Austin, which by Spring of 1990 was an object of interest for those of us who frequent RTMC. The comet never reached the brightness expected, yet eyes were glued to its position in the sky. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994JALPO..37..171M

The real excitement of astronomy can only be captured by those who weather long nights in the cold. This final link, a description of that not so bright comet everyone was tracking at RTMC says it all. It’s the most accurate description of astronomical frustration and reward. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1118830/index.htm