[Andrew C]

Contrary to popular belief, and as Ken has noted, we do exist. I just received a PM from Robin and have left a phone message.

The Alice club has not really been operating on a regular basis lately, in part because our secretary has been distracted from astronomy by embarking on building (from scratch) and fitting out an enormous aluminium hulled cabin cruiser for the past 2 or 3 years. He is planning to launch off the SA coast this Christmas.

However, we run public viewing nights out at the Desert Park a couple of times a year usually attended by one or two hundred people, and most years a sidewalk astronomy night in town. The rest of the time we largely do our own thing.

Three of our members also hosted and transported and supported the international Pluto / Hydra occultation astronomers earlier this year. From all accounts thay had a great time (viewing was at 3 locations in the vicinity of Barrow Creek), although the program was not successful in recording an occultation of Hydra itself anywhere in the world from what I have been told.

As others have noted, winter nights (June - August) here are quite cold and mostly clear and dry, typically down around 5 degrees and we get about half a dozen frosts each year. Seeing is not quite as good as you might expect, but transparency is pretty good.

Summer is at the other extreme, with minima around 20-25 most nights. October to December we experience a lot of humid cloudy weather with occasional thunderstorms, so this period of the year is a bit hit and miss.

If any of you are coming up this way, feel free to contact me and we will see what we can arrange (PM is best as I am a bit erratic with watching the forums, and I don't think the others are active IIS members).

Cheers,

Andrew Crouch