[Quark (Trevor)]

Greetings Tony and all of the IIS imagers whom I had the great pleasure of meeting for the first time at the 2011 CWAS Astrofest.
I apologize for this belated message, since my return to Broken Hill I have unfortunately been rather ill. It really was great to be able to put faces to the people whose work I admire and it was a highlight for me to meet you all and I congratulate all that submitted images to the David Malin Awards and especially those that received an award.


I sincerely thank John Sarkissian for the opportunity to speak at the Astrofest and for the deluxe tour of “The Dish” he so kindly gave my family and I on the Friday prior. I would also like to thank Alex Abbey for his initial approaches regarding the possibility of speaking at Parkes. I must say that originally I thought there would be very little a broken down ex-mine worker would be able to contribute but the timing of my work being published in both “Science” and “Nature” probably made my topic fairly relevant.


It was also a very great pleasure to catch up with David Malin again; so much had changed for me with my astronomy since his visit, along with Fred Watson to my observatory back in 2000. I apportion equal quantities of blame to both David & Fred for the development of my interest in the science of astronomy in general and planetary science in particular. David tells me he will be more wary from now on when offering encouragement to amateurs, but he said it with a glint in his eye.


I had been quite worried about being able to get through my presentation in the 50 min’s that John had allowed for it (he gave me an hour but with the understanding that 10 min’s of that would be for questions) so my wife & son had been enduring numerous trial runs over the weeks leading up to the event. To those that attended I hope I didn’t get side tracked too many times. When I am on a roll talking about my favourite subject it is often hard for others to find my off switch.


Following my presentation Alex Abbey was telling me that John Sarkissian also tended to be a very enthusiastic speaker and that they would never be able to have both of us talk at the same conference as the chance of us achieving critical mass would be just too great.
Again, what a truly memorable couple of days and what a pleasure to meet so many like minded people.

Regards
Trevor