President's Message - March 2013

This last month has passed without much to excite the observers and imagers among us, although occasionally, in the midst of weeks and weeks of cloudy nights, a clear night will slip through, more likely than not accompanied by a large, bright, moon. In my logbook, so far this year, I have recorded one night of observing.

Thankfully, other activities which are not so weather-dependent continue. For example, thanks to the excellent efforts of Lauri Roche, and the National RASC Public Speaker Program, we are a joint sponsor of the principal speaker at the upcoming symposium Exploring the formation and evolution of planetary systems of the International Astronomical Union, being held this Spring in Victoria. Thanks to Mark Bohlman and Dorothy Paul, and other members of the Light Pollution Abatement Committee, for their fine work on the establishment of Cattle Point as an urban dark sky preserve. Extra kudos to Mark for his first-class interview about the preserve on CBC, and to Chris Gainor for his excellent interview on C-FAX explaining how space rocks come to land in Russia.

Lastly, we took note of another honour presented to Dr. Jim Hesser, the 2013 CASCA (Canadian Astronomical Society) Qilak Award for "astronomy outreach and communication." We are lucky to have Jim in
our midst.