While lots of vendors and astronomy lovers are at the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) in Suffern, New York, a group of not-quite-100 amateur astronomers are with me in Bloomington, Illinois, for the North Central Region of the Astronomical League (NCRAL) conference.
I drove to the conference hotel April 16, and the lobby was abuzz with carefully coordinated activity. In fact, with so many people milling about, I marveled at the level of organization by the handful of people who put the conference together. I chatted with several friends, some of whom I’d just seen in the Milwaukee area.
Supper for the night was at 6 p.m., and then Carl Wenning (one of the conference organizers) and I presented a live planetarium show at the Illinois State University Planetarium. Carl was the planetarium’s director for many years before retiring in 2009. He and I also were two of the six total students to successfully complete the Masters program in Planetarium Education at Michigan State.
As one of the invited speakers, this afternoon I’ll be giving a 1-hour talk. I’ve chosen “Astronomy’s Greatest Generation” as the title. It’s all about the history of amateur astronomy — the study of the sky without that pursuit leading to gainful employment.
My PowerPoint presentation is a timeline, actually. Beginning in the last years of the 19th century, and continuing to 2010, I mention many of the major events that have influenced our hobby for more than 100 years. I had fun putting the talk together. In my next blog, I’ll let you know how the “crowd” received it.