It seems that Joe, long noted for his crisp and high-contrast black and white photos, was examining a particularly sharp print of the Eta Carinae nebula over dinner when he accidentally spilled some tomato sauce on the print. Hastening to wipe it off, he inadvertently smeared the sauce in just the right places and consistency to give the classic observatory print magenta tones within the nebulosity. Seized with inspiration, he deliberately placed a speck of egg yolk on the homunculus and was instantly motivated to actually try his hand on the sky. The rest, as the poet said, is history.
To double the club's joy, veteran Astrophotographer David Gollums-Butt has returned to his camera. David has taken sabbatical leave for several years to contemplate life and the universe, do sundry good works, and to take pity on starving fish by feeding them in the guise of pretend fishing. Now he has returned to the Astrophotographers fold, his many fans are eagerly awaiting the results.
ASNSW Web-Master Ronald MacDonald has doubled the size of the Web Site in anticipation of publishing David's new photos.
Bad news for the South Pacific Star Party is that Dunedoo's most famous son, Emmanuel Snodgrass, apologises for his inability to attend this year as he has leased his ride on turbo-charged ride-on lawnmower to Professor Manuela Vögtswagen who is visiting Australia to carry out serious astronomical research. She also wishes to be able to investigate and report back to German amateur astronomers exactly what a dark sky looks like.
It seems that for many years, the only way German amateurs could get the dark sky experience in Germany was to visit one of the disused coal mines in the Rühr which have been fitted with LEDs of various colours and brightness to simulate constellations. In fact, there has been such a lack of stars or dark sky at German star parties lately, that many have started to give serious competition to the Münich Beer Festival.
Emmanuel, who needed the money owing to the intense competition of those damn satellites discovering so many comets that he has had no prize money these past five years, will concentrate on solar astronomy for a while. He has been examining the big new naked eye sunspot seen in March with his new Solar-Telrad fitted with an H-alpha filter and blink-comparator.
His biographer, Mr Greg Burnt, will unfortunately be unable to attend the South Pacific Star Party to tender Mr Snodgrass' apologies in person.
Also attending again will be the famous Bokglob Grössblürter, who last year won the prize for the attendee who had travelled the furthest to the Star Party, as no one else could match the 72.3 parsecs recorded on his trip computer.
There were some problems when argument developed on whether his vehicle should be parked in the car park, or amongst the caravans, compounded by the fact that it had no wheels. The caravan parking area won, however, on the basis that, being closer to the pit toilets, the sundry minor radiation leaks from the warp drive could serve to sterilise the contents of these pit toilets, and these leaks were well within the tolerances allowed under the Wiruna by-laws.
This year's difficulty arises from Bokglob's request to open a vendor's stall at the SPSP. His Sydney agent, Mr Spike Myth of the B&D Shop contends that he was given exclusive agency rights within the Inner Solar System for Bokglob's products. Mr Grössblürter has produced a legal opinion to the effect that the Inner Solar System ends at Venus. The problem for the committee has been that this opinion is a document written in a complex sequence of binary numbers, which Mr Myth claims is actually a quotation by Callisto Craft Repairs for repair and servicing of Bokglob's shipboard reactor. The matter continues and will be determined if ever the code gets translated in time for the SPSP.
Many members were surprised at the sudden recent closure of the Ilford Roadhouse. The good news, however, is that this is so that Mt Stromlo Observatory can be rebuilt on the Roadhouse site, and not at Canberra after all. The sign in Bon Glen pointing to Mt Stromlo is being re-directed accordingly.
Consideration of rebuilding Mt Stromlo on the original site took into account the prodigious amount of hot air emanating from the nearby Federal Parliament on Capital Hill which has degraded seeing conditions in recent years. This had become such a problem that many staff members had not realised that the bushfire was approaching, but mistook the blast of hot air for a particularly stormy weekend-session of parliament.
Not only is the sky over Ilford darker than that over Canberra, but Rylstone Shire Council has undertaken to replace Ilford's one and only street light with an energy efficient downward facing lamp, so that the new "Stromford" Observatory will not be affected by light pollution.
Baron Beavis von Buttkopf was so taken by the project that he is negotiating with a Mudgee winery to rent a hectare or two of non-productive land close enough to be able to co-operate with the re-born observatory by constructing a southern hemisphere field station in conjunction with the University of Burgerweldt. Professor Vogtswagen has visited several wineries on his behalf.
Heartened by the encouraging results achieved by Chief Conservationist Col McMickle in developing his "adopt a snake" program, society curator of spiders Scots Muesli has taken interest in a neglected and persecuted species.
Taking the view that the Wiruna Red Back Spiders had been a much unappreciated and virtually ignored species, Scots decided to turn his humpy, an historic and National Trust classified replica of Henry Lawson's pit toilet on the Gulgong gold diggings into a spider sanctuary. The structure had lots of dark corners in which the females could spin webs, lay their eggs, and devour male Red-Back Spiders after mating.
Lest he be accused of running foolish risks, Scots has imported from the US several stylish sets of Kevlar underwear to wear under his freezer suit, though he is satisfied that when he has the spiders properly trained and eating out of his hand, there will be no problem.
He had thought of opening part of his sanctuary to White-Tail Spiders, but considered their colour to be too provocative to keen observers who feared the reflection of starlight off white surfaces would violate their night vision.
When properly housetrained, he considers that surplus numbers of Red-Back Spiders could be relocated to the Wiruna pit toilets. This would have the advantage during South Pacific Star Parties of discouraging patrons from lingering any longer than absolutely necessary and thus reducing those long lines outside. When this was put to the committee, they decided that a special sitting was required to determine the matter.