AstroAssembly 2009

New England amateur astronomers are an especially dedicated group of people. Our region of the country is not privileged with the number of clear nights that other areas, like the southwest, get to enjoy. Regardless, our passion for astronomy remains strong nonetheless.

This past year is sure to be remembered by anyone with a passion for astronomy as a particularly cloudy one. Skyscrapers offered a series of CCD imaging workshops this past spring, and all but one was clouded out. The summer months were much the same, with a spectroscopy workshop and many of our public nights suffering the same fate.

Autumn usually brings clear skies to New England, and in the past 30 years I can only recall one or two times that we had rain during an AstroAssembly. So even though the spring and summer may have had a lot of cloudy nights, the weather was bound to be nicer for AstroAssembly this year…or so I thought.

It didn’t work out that way.

AstroAssembly 2009 will be remembered, I believe, as one of the best ones Skyscrapers has ever put on. Yes, it rained. And at times heavily. But a lot of hardy New England amateur astronomers showed up, some as far away as New Hampshire, regardless of the weather to enjoy our program of wonderful speakers talking on a variety of interesting topics.

Congrats to Chairperson Steve Hubbard for putting together a fine program of speakers and organizing all of the various tasks that needed to be accomplished. I would also like to take this time to thank all of the members who contributed their time and effort to making AstroAssembly such a fine event. This includes the Trustees and members of the Observatory Committee who worked several weekends prior to Astro Assembly getting our buildings and grounds cleaned up. And a special thank you to the members who braved the elements to help with parking, the registration table, and operating the “Star Dust Grill”.

I think one of our guests this year put it best when he recently wrote us a thank you note, saying “Even though AstroAssembly only happens once a year, whenever I go, I feel like I’m at home, among good friends”.

I am sure all of us feel exactly the same way.