A new year begins and with that, a time to reflect on the past year, the International Year of Astronomy.

International Year of Astronomy

The Peterborough Astronomical Association was very active in participating in the goal of the National IYA group to achieve one million Galileo Moments during the year. A Galileo Moment as defined by the IYA website is “an engaging astronomy experience” during IYA2009. Our club reported 2575 Galileo Moments for the year, a significant number for a club our size. The events contributing the largest numbers included (in chronological order):

A very big thank you to all that helped make these possible.

Astronomy on the Hill

The traditional Astronomy Day was turned into a two-day event as a trial last year. A public observing session on the Saturday evening followed up by Sunday, planetarium, solar viewing, face painting, rockets for the kids, lectures and displays. A very successful event, which will now be the model for future “Astronomy Days”.

Annual General Meeting

The year ended for the club with our Annual General Meeting. The highlight of this being the election or acclamation of the clubs executive along with the Christmas goodies. The executive for the coming two-year term are as follows:

New President by acclimation Rick Stankiewicz
New Vice President:  Dean Shewring
New Secretary: John Cameron
New Editor by acclimation Phil Chee
New Membership Director: Pat Crebar
New Librarian by acclimation: Val Mathias

Completing their final year of office:

Past President – John Crossen
Webmaster – Boyd Wood
LPA director – Mark Coady
Treasurer – Trish McCloskey
Publicity Director – Rodger Forsyth

(A big “Thank you” to all the executive members that completed their terms in office: Vice President: Robert Fisher; Secretary: Pat Smallman; Membership Director: Harold Briggs)

Moving Ahead to 2010

As we begin the new year we can look forward to a repeat of some of the activities from last year, as well as focus on some new ones. The two-day Astronomy on the Hill will undoubtedly be repeated along with the annual telescope raffle. The staff and campers at Emily Provincial Park have asked that we return this coming summer. One could see this as an annual event. We will be continuing our monthly club observing sessions at various observatories in the area too. 
Commencing in January we will begin the review of the design for a Dobsonian mount for the club’s recently acquired 10” Newtonian reflector. This will be a club activity in that once the design is approved members will be given the opportunity to create some of the parts, then a grand assembly “party” will be held to put the telescope together. I’m offering our home at the Robinson Road Observatory for this.  We also look forward to doing some Skyping (on-line videoing) during our monthly meetings.  We are working on a line up of presentations and speakers too.  Stay tuned to our website for the most up to date information as our annual schedule fills up.

Rodger Forsyth
Publicity Director
Peterborough Astronomical Association