President's Message - October 2010

By John McDonald

As my term as your President nears its end I am looking forward to spending more time observing the night sky. I won't stop photographing it but Nelson Walker's workshop at the star party has rekindled my latent interest in looking through an eyepiece. For me, the great thing about observational astronomy is the ever changing sky. Jupiter. Uranus and Neptune are putting on a show in the evening sky this fall and Comet Hartley may become bright enough for naked eye observing. Also now that I can recognize quite a few constellations I like seeing changing patterns with old familiar friends emerging in the east and the current ones departing in the west as the seasons change. As I write this I am excited about seeing the southern skies. Wendy and I are joining Joe Carr on a dream trip to New Zealand leaving in two days. It will be my first visit there and I can't wait.

The Light Pollution Abatement efforts are continuing, and a significant step was made with the recent survey of the local sky quality. Thanks to the fine organizing by Sid Sidhu and David Lee and the efforts of many of you who took measurements with the Sky Quality Meters (SQMs), we have an excellent start to benchmarking the sky quality in the greater Victoria region. It should serve us well in the future as we will be able to see what changes are occurring over time. Thanks to all who participated.

Don't forget to get your bookings for the Annual General Meeting that is coming up in November. I look forward to seeing you all there.