AROUND OCA

By Barbara Toy

Well, we've certainly been having unusual weather this summer - last year, it seemed that the "June Gloom" never went away, and this year we've been hit with weeks of thunderstorms dumping a lot of water that's cut up the roads around our Anza site again. I got caught in one on the way out from our site on July 31 - that wasn't as intense as the one that hit on the day of the August star party/Starbecue, but even so it made the drive out a very interesting experience as the road turned into a running stream around me. The accompanying picture shows the wall of rain advancing on our site just before I left - it was an impressive sight!

Well, we're now heading toward winter and another rainy season. As I write this, we could use some help in several different areas to help us prepare for this winter's rains - please contact me (btoy@cox.net , 714/606-1825) if you can help with any of these projects:

Anza House:

Anza House is actually made up of two coaches that were combined into one structure. The eastern coach has an asphalt shingle roof that suffered quite a bit of damage last winter, especially on the south side. We need some help replacing shingles and otherwise making the roof weathertight. The western coach has an aluminum roof that also needs work, mainly caulking cracks and joints.

The club's weather station and WeatherCam are also mounted on Anza House. As to the WeatherCam in particular, the platform that supports the full-sky mirror and the camera is splitting apart and needs to be rebuilt. We also need to either re-chrome the full-sky mirror or replace it, as the edges are pretty badly rusted and other parts of the surface are failing.

The Club Observatory:

Hopefully, by the time you read this we'll already be well along on the plan to stabilize the existing roof on the observatory and to refinish the outside wood. If we haven't finished it up yet, and you can donate some time to the cause, we'd be very grateful for the help. The plan is to reinforce the structure with screws where the nails have been popping out, re-tension the cables holding the two sides of the roof together, and scrape down/wire brush/caulk and repair the exterior eaves and the north and south walls of the roof structure and then paint them. In addition, the stucco wall that supports the pulley for the chain drive and helps support the roof when it's open needs repair and to be sealed, along with the supports for the roof that are out in the open.

Gary Schones has generously volunteered to draw up the plans and build the replacement roof with Jim Hannum. Many thanks to both of them for undertaking this, and especially to Gary for agreeing to spearhead the project. Capable as they are, this project needs the assistance of more than these two people, so please consider helping out. We'll be providing more information as the schedule for the work is set and I find out from Gary and Jim what types of help they need at different stages of the project.

AstroImage 2006 Conference:

This doesn't have anything to do with preparing for winter, but we do have an urgent need for someone with good marketing skills to help us out with plans for the AstroImage 2006 Conference. The feedback we got after AI 2004 showed that we were not as effective as we would have liked in getting word about the conference out to people who would have an interest in attending it, and we definitely want to change that. You don't have to be an imager to volunteer for this - I'm not an imager but I somehow wound up as chair of the Planning Committeewhich works because the other people on the committee do have that expertise. If you can give us a hand with this, please contact me as soon as possible, as we need to plan for effective marketing as early in the process as possible.

Now that those practical issues are out of the way, let me return to a topic I started several months ago

The Astronomer's Guide to Dealing With Shyness and Stage Fright, Part 2

In Part 1 of this "Guide," which appeared last May, I described a general approach to dealing with shyness and stage fright that works by letting you deal with the problem in easy stages - you push the boundaries of your comfort level a bit with a new activity or by exposing yourself to a new situation, and work with it until you feel reasonably confident that you are able to deal with it appropriately, then you push your comfort level a bit further with a new activity or by exposing yourself to another new situation, and so on. Another part of the process is setting yourself challenges at different times that push your boundaries even further, and which, when you cope with them successfully, can move you along the process even faster.

As it happens, OCA is a great place to put this approach into practice. We are an astronomy club, and the club's main mission, of course, has to do with astronomy, but, because of the wide variety of activities and interest groups within the club, you couldn't ask for a better or more varied environment for working on social skills - or one that is, in general, more supportive. Suppose you want to improve your ability to deal with groups of people you don't know very well, or at all - let's take a look at a few of the options the club offers:

EOA SIG. The EOA meetings are generally the smallest and most conversational of the SIG meetings. We usually have six to ten people at each meeting, which are held in a restaurant, so dinner is a significant part of the proceedings and encourages a social atmosphere. The group is working on the club's remote controlled telescope facility (the MOCAT), and the latest developments and future plans, of course, are the major topics at each meeting - but there's also a lot of general talk on a lot of different subjects. We also have group members regularly working on the telescope and associated equipment out at Anza; at this point, this is usually JV Howell and whoever else is available. Both the group meetings and work parties out at Anza give opportunities to interact with other club members in a pleasant, low-key environment as well as the satisfaction of contributing to a worthwhile project.

GoTo SIG. These meetings are generally 12 or more people, and are currently held at Craig Bobchin's home (for which we thank him). The interest that brings this group together is telescopes with GoTo systems, and the meetings usually start with a round-table (or round-living room) discussion, often with an outside speaker or a presentation by one or more of the members on a topic of interest to the group, and they usually end with a viewing session in Craig's back yard. This group also regularly assists with the club's "How to Use Your Telescope" classes, and helping people who are having problems with their telescopes is a regular feature of the meetings. The GoTo group's meetings are also very social, with a lot of banter as well as solid information exchanged in the course of the meetings. A lot of the "regulars" at these meetings are also active in the Outreach program, so, if you're thinking of doing outreaches, this is also a good place to get to know some of the people you'll be seeing at those events. This group now has a new email list that the members are encouraged to join so they can share information and keep in touch, ocagotosig@yahoogroups.com .

Astrophysics SIG. Generally these meetings are around 15 to 24 people, and are held in the classroom behind the Centennial Heritage Museum. The main formal activity in each meeting is watching one or two video lectures on various aspects of astrophysics, along with group discussions of topics covered in the lectures or other topics of interest. Don Lynn usually brings an assortment of the latest pictures of interest he's collected from NASA and other websites (typically, he brings more to these meetings than he shows at the general meetings), and there are usually group discussions of the pictures and any recent news related to astrophysics, as well as a lot of informal discussion as people look at the pictures set up around the room. Because of the lectures, these meetings tend to be a bit more structured than the GoTo or EOA meetings, but more along the lines of a seminar group than a lecture class. We usually have a lot of general socializing at the beginning and end of the meetings, and quite a bit of affectionate banter mixed in with more serious discussions in the course of the meetings. Because of the size of the group and the structure of the meetings, it's easier than with the EOA or the GoTo SIG to hang back from the group a bit while you get a feel for it, before you really start to participate, though Chris Buchen (the chair) makes an effort to introduce new people, and group members usually go out of their way to try to include new people in the discussions and make them feel at home.

AstroImage SIG. These tend to be the largest of the SIG meetings, often over 20 people, and are held in the conference room at Source Refrigeration, courtesy of Bill Patterson, who chairs the g