The Year in Review...

Jan 1, 2005

If 2005 is as good as 2004 was, I’ll be extremely happy. Though 2004 was dominated by some rather poor weather for me, I managed to accomplish some real growth in the hobby. But I also enjoyed some special moments.

Here are my 10 highlights, in no particular order:

• The Continued Development of the Three Rivers Foundation for the Arts and Sciences (3RF) - Acquisition of the Comanche Springs campus and lending input to its development. See www.3rf.org for more details.
• New Equipment Acquisitions - The SBIG STL-6303E and SBIG STL-11000, along with the Tak NJP mount, really opened up the skies for me.
• Best Deep-Sky Photo at TSP 2004 - This was the surprise of the year when I won this award at the Texas Star Party for my North America and Pelican shot.
• Major Star Parties - I attended the Texas Star Party for my third straight year and the Eldorado Star Party for the first time.  Always great being able to spend time with my friends from around the country.
• The Silver Twinkie - Getting my 1972 Airstream Travel Trailer has made travelling to the dark skies much more fun!
• The AIC in San Jose - In early November, I spent three days with some of the world’s best imagers at the Advanced Imaging Conference in San Jose, CA. Some of the things I learned there really helped me to take my image processing to a new level.
• December 11th, Under the Stars - One of the most memorable nights that I’ve had under the stars was shared with my friends Jeff Barton, Russell Horn, and Larry Smith.  Some of the best seeing of the year yields some of the best refractor views I’ve ever had of Saturn, as well as some good raw data for the Pleiades shot I’m work on.  Jeff and I also clearly observed Canopus on the southern horizon, the second brightest star in the sky but normally so far south that we can’t catch it…it was bright this night.  Jeff and I also witnessed the NOSS triplet satellites for the first time…freaky, freaky, freaky…something I’ll never forget.  Of course, all these events were surrounded by an earlier than expected and prolific show from the Geminids, including many earth-gazers.  We were seeing meteors at a rate of 3 to 5 per minute, a pace which continued until the shower’s peak two days later.
• Becoming “Prime Focus” Editor - I took over as editor/writer of the “Fort Worth Astronomical Society newsletter called “Prime Focus.”
• Becoming a Moderator at A.com - I normally don’t care for such honors, but it was very nice to be asked to help moderate that forum, a place that I’ve been involved with since 2000.
• Our Dark Skies - Finally, a place to hang out with my extended astronomy family! This is a great Internet forum environment. Go to www.ourdarkskies.com and check it out for yourself!

The only way 2005 could be better is to have more nights under the stars!!!