January 2021

Happy New Year to all! I hope everyone had a merry and healthy Christmas, a jolly Festivus, and got to see the Great Conjunction on the solstice.

With the new year upon us we need to look forward and plan for our renewed future “live” at Seagrave. I want us to have monthly meetings in the meeting hall again, but perhaps with the Zoom component still in place. We have found lots of participation from members of other societies throughout southern New England and I want them to continue to join us. The other thing we need is in person observing, especially for our members who have suffered long from a lack of eyepiece time. The trustees have been very busy repairing the dome and roll-offs so everything is ready to go! At the first in-person meeting Jim Crawford has promised a photographic tour of the grounds and a description of all he and Bob have accomplished. 

Our outreach has definitely increased this year and it is evident from our new members joining us. We have over 130 members at last count. Many are joining because of the Facebook page managed by Jimmy’s efforts and the Night Sky Network news and calendar being managed by Linda. Thank you both! We also are getting interest from school kids. Dave Huestis held a session with a boy from Rocky Hill School at Seagrave. He gave him a tour and talked about our history. This student is very interested in the Hubble Space Telescope and will attend our January meeting. In addition Steve Siok is mentoring two high school juniors who are interested in astrophysics and engineering. Both are proud owners of new 8” Dobsonians and we are discussing how they can build Poncet mounts for their scopes as a senior high school project.

Our financial situation is very stable. Because of the pandemic we have been without internet at Seagrave and we did not need the port-a-john this last summer. In addition Sue Hubbard has renegotiated our insurance. It will reduce that expense significantly. Thank you, Sue.

So for the time being please continue to join us for our Zoom meetings. Steve Hubbard has found great speakers and people are coming out of the woodwork asking if they can give a talk! Please join in. I hope you are not afraid of Zoom. We have had no issues with its use. If you need some help joining a meeting, please contact Kathy or Linda.  You do not need to have a Zoom account.

That’s all for now and let’s all look forward to the coming year. It promises to make up for last year.

Clear skies.