President’s Message – June 2000

Posted On June 1, 2000


RTMC and a stroll down memory lane...

I am writing this letter a few days before the Riverside Telescope Maker's Conference and the IAPPP Photometry and CCD Imaging Symposium. Both events will have already occurred by the time you read this (in the Sirius Astronomer - on the web of course you get it early! - ED). This will be my second IAPPP conference, and my memory is too frail to remember how many RTMC's I have attended.

I'm sure most of you have attended RTMC ( http://www.rtmc-inc.org/ ), if not this most recent one, then perhaps others in the past. We are privileged to be so close to one of the premier events for amateur astronomers anywhere in the world. I know that OCA has added a lot of novice members in the last year or two. If you are in that category and have not attended RTMC, then you are really missing out on a great experience. Be sure and go next year (not too late even now - ED). RTMC is held every Memorial Day weekend near Big Bear. In the original version of my Starcruiser.Com web site I wrote an article about the conference here. The article should give you a feel for the event and has been updated with a special conspiracy photo detailing with JPL's cover-up of the Comet Hale-Bopp Saturn Like Object affair. See the last page of the article. You don't know about the JPL cover-up story? Check out the whole sordid affair at http://www.sipe.com/halebopp/slo1.htm . The specific reference to the JPL cover-up can be found at http://www.sipe.com/halebopp/slo6.htm . See the paragraph that begins "Sipe is such a lying bastard". Grin.

Well, as pleasant as this is, it's probably enough strolling down memory lane for this month.

"The goodness of the night upon you"
Othello Act 1 Scene 2

Russell Sipe