I attended NACAA 2008 as well. I found it very well-organised and more than worth the $275 cost for full rego plus one workshop, certainly for someone like me trying to determine which direction to go in future ... visual-only, astro-imaging (planetary or DSO?) or quantitative/scientific.
The Convention was held at the Penrith Panthers, and, as has been pointed out, it’s well set-up for meetings with professional catering and attention to detail.
I met IIS regulars bassnut (Fred Vanderhaven, NorthRyde, Sydney - and the GRAS set-up in SA), and outbackmanyep (Chris, from Walcha, NSW ... yes, he of the blue IIS text!). It’s strange how you form a mental picture of how particular on-line contributors might look like, but then they turn out to be a completely different in appearance and manner when you meet them in person.
There was none of the usual computer and organisational glitches that often occur at conferences. The only one I came across was when Tom Richards (
www.woodridgeobsy.org/ and Chairman of the Organising Committee) realised the PowerPoint presentation he’d brought was corrupt. That just wasn’t a problem for him, he gave the whole paper (A Variable Passion: Three Case Studies in Amateur Variable-Star Research) in such an accomplished way I’d suggest he needn’t bother with ‘slides’ at all in future.
There were about 40 presentations (approx. 4 workshops, 4 plenary and 30 parallel sessions) delivered to the 108 (?) delegates, with a bias toward amateur quantitative work (astrometry, photometry, etc). These emphasised the fact that anyone with relatively inexpensive gear can do worthwhile work, supplying data that can (and often has) been of great use to the professionals. If anyone had any doubts on this, the presentation ‘The Amateur Scientist in Modern Society’ by Arne Henden (Director of the AAVSO) would have convinced them. Other subjects ranged from “What Went Wrong with the Great Melbourne Telescope?” through “Aboriginal Australians - the World’s First Astronomers?” to “Planetariums of the World”. It was interesting to note from the last paper that Sydney is either the largest or second-largest city in the world not to have a public-access planetarium.
I was really looking forward to seeing Fred V’s two presentations on narrowband imaging, and I was not disappointed. This was the first time I’d seen the stacking and tweaking operations required to achieve the stunning results he and others end up with. Fred also gave a paper on the GRAS ‘Rent-a-Scope’ system and all the trials and tribulations of setting up the equipment to become part of the network.
Yesterday (Easter Sunday) saw everyone in the grounds of the UWS observatory for a BBQ and prize presentations. Apart from the main dome (housing a 24-inch locally-made RC) and the adjoining building, there was an old 2.3m Sirius observatory shell shoved alongside a nearby rubbish bin. I hope one of the garbos is interested in astronomy!
Of course, the attendees are not all amateurs, some are professional astronomers or ‘hybrids’ and it was great to meet some of them to get a ‘high-end’ view from them of the interest I’d had since eight years old (but never pursued professionally, perhaps due to my abyssmal mathematics skills). At one point, there being no room at the tables, I sat on top of the concrete top of the observatory’s septic tank to save eating standing up. I was soon joined by a fellow with the same idea, and I remarked “this thing must be the observatory’s ‘neutrino detector’ wondering if this remark might go over my dinner companion’s head. Far from it! He turned out to be Dr. Ragbir Bhathal, astrophysicist and award-winning author who ‘wrote the book’ on SETI - the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - and whose presentation on this subject I hadn’t attended earlier that day.
All in all, this was a very different experience from astro society meetings, star parties and the like. When I first heard of NACAA I thought to myself ‘If there’s so many societies and field meetings, such that it’s a difficult choice which one to attend sometimes, why do we need another one’? But I now realise it fills a missing link with a completely different formula and does it very well. I’m assuming here that this is the only ‘academic’ amateur astronomy meeting in Australia, if I’m wrong, please correct me.
NACAA happens every two years, the next one being in Canberra in 2010. I highly recommend it, so start putting something in the piggy bank now!
PS Sorry, no pictures either!
Nacaa 2008
. I had fun. I believe this is my first NACAA since 1980 and I've been away too long.
). The presentations by well known alumini were very interesting, nice to see them in the flesh , and I got to meet a couple of IIS regulars on the way. The BBQ was fun too.
I feel the same way! Except I have to add "take some serious meteor shower observations" to the list.
) I'm going to be doing my best to get more Perth people over there next time.
