President's Message - May 2004

May 2004

Chris Gainor

The month just ended has gone into the books as the sunniest (or to us, the clearest) April on record in Victoria. But this past month has been remarkable for other reasons as well.

It started on a sunny April 1, when a group led by our Vice President, Bruno Quenneville, carried out the work of moving George Ball's dome and telescope supports from George's longtime home in the Gorge Burnside area.

The move went well, especially due to some skillful work by the Steve Tidder of Advantage Cranes, who threaded the dome between power wires and hedges, and then transferred the dome for temporary safekeeping in Bruno's back yard. Sid Sidhu picked up George's telescope equipment for storage.

We held our monthly meeting at the Centre of the Universe on Little Saanich Mountain, and there we met the CU's new director, Jacqueline Porter, whose experience and drive are a match for the big challenges of running this important facility. We also enjoyed a great lecture from Jean-Rene Roy on the Gemini Telescopes.

The focus then turned to Astronomy Day, which took place on Saturday April 24 at the Royal BC Museum and later at the CU. We enjoyed large crowds at the museum, in spite of the hundreds of other activities that seem to take place at this time of year on weekends.

We all heard scores of children exclaim "wow" and "cool" as they got their first glimpse of a sunspot, a lunar crater, a Jovian moon, or a Saturnian ring. And our string of excellent weather for Astronomy Day continued unbroken.

Again this wouldn't be possible without the hard work of people like Sid, Bruno, Sandy Barta, David Lee, Lauri Roche, Stephen Courtin, and many others. Many of our members come out and play important roles in making Astronomy Day a success, and I want to thank all of you.

There were also our school observing events, including one at Keating Elementary, and another at Millstream Elementary conducted by Sid.

Finally, on April 28, the Victoria Centre council held a special meeting to recognize our Honourary President, George Ball, and his gigantic contributions to our group. We presented him with photos contributed by Bruno, David and Bill Almond, and with a Certificate of Appreciation for all his work.

And in between all that, many of us took advantage of those clear skies and got some observing in, too!