A.I. observing session tuesday night

Must.....



....bite......





.....tongue....



:lol:

BTW Seanie, please don't take any of my reponses to your quotes personally.

I never would, by anyone, so don't worry Dave! We all have our opinions etc, and are free to say what we want.

I used to be a relatively active AI member until I was 'advised' that I should only bring Celestron or DTG equipment to a star party. The scope I had intended to bring was a Televue Ranger and I haven't attended any more AI star parties because I'm not interested in paying an entrance fee to an event AND providing free advertising for the product that the host sells. That incident also made me take a closer look at what I was dealing with and I realised that AI is not a proper club as I understand the term and has no democratic structure that I know of. I've certainly never been asked to vote in elections for officers or committee members or to attend an AGM.

I still get a copy of the magazine every month and have no problem doing business with the business behind AI provided prices are competitive. When I find otherwise I simply shop elsewhere. And I think that the media exposure for astronomy that has been developed by AI can be a good thing. But when it comes to clubs being granted membership of a democratic organisation like IFAS there have to be safeguards against giving membership to vendor sponsored bodies that are not governed by their members' relected epresentatives. Otherwise the vendors could end up running the show to the detriment of members of the constituent clubs who are after all consumers and entitled to the widest possible range of unbiased information and advice.

"....Celestron or DTG equipment to a star party. "

The reason for this is that the Shop was the sponsor for the Star-B-Q event. For example, so was Coca-Cola, so there were no competitor soft drinks at the event. This should have been explained to you at the time you volunteered to help.

"Democratically elected" or "market driven" it's all just semantics.

I don't honestly think the lack of recognition is due to IFAS excluding A.I. If SDAS withdrew from IFAS would we suddenly get A.I. promoting us? I think not. In fact, DCU astronomy club is a member of IFAS yet are invited along to the Astro-Expo every year. Astro-2 are IFAS members and similarly recognised. When I asked could SDAS be represented I was flatly turned down so unfortunately the previously mentioned reasons for A.I. not talking to us are conflicting with their position.

Back up a minute there! Astro2 are not recognised by AI. Or if they are no one has told Astro2! I've been on the Astro2 committee since the day it was founded and I have no memory of us ever sending a stand to the Astro-Expo. The Physics department do have a stand and it's possible they pimp Astro2 at the event but that we are recognised by AI comes as news to me.

SDAS btw are a FREE club with a number of A.I. members. I don't have any problem with A.I. ... NONE AT ALL ... and think it's brilliant that the hobby has such a high profile. My problem is, why does A.I. come up with excuses whenever I ask them to advertise something on OUR behalf, not IFASs. We had Guy Consolmagno, co-author of "Turn Left at Orion", over last year and repeated requests to mention his talk to the wider A.I. membership were ignored.

Now, that's pettiness if somebody in A.I. decided because they had a problem with another club they said they couldn't care less that they were making a decision not to tell the members. Tell me that's democratic?????

All it needs is for A.I. to turn around and say, yes, no problem, we'll list your event. Are they going to make the first move?

I share John's frustration here. Both AI and IFAS are supposed to be about promoting Astronomy in Ireland. Ignoring each other's events, or worse still, actively having a policy of not mentioning other events is just not in the interests of Irish Astronomy.

I have no problem with AI events being advertised here as long as the advertisement is honest. If the event is genuinely free then great, if it's not I think it should still be advertised here but the announcement needs to be honest.

I brought this thread to David Moore's attention and he wrote:
...
Best wishes for clear skies to all....
David Moore.

Pretty much the same arguments I got from him years ago. I.e. any issues are IFAS's fault. Whatever :roll:

The email avoids the issues I think, rather than attacking IFAS. I don't mean opening A.I up to elections as I know he will not, and I don't really care whether he does or not. Their model works very well for Mr. Moore, whether it works well for an open friendly spirit of astronomy in Ireland is another question. Anyway I solved my problems with how A.I. is ran by leaving it!

I mean quite simply, is AI willing to help promote Astronomy in Ireland by supporting clubs and organisations affiliated to IFAS? The political answer of exclusion that David raises has nothing to do with the very practical exclusion that he practices towards IFAS affiliated organisations.

For example
* Will they put a web link to clubs here that have a link to them?
* Will they advertise events as the magazine claims (claimed anyway) for other organisations?
* Will they mention other clubs events in their email announcement if they miss the magazine deadline?

In return I would have no problem with people posting announcements for A.I. events on the boards. As it stands most AI public watches get mentioned here anyway, some make it into the SDAS site and newsletter.

Dave Grennan, and possibly others, have made some great strides here publically and in private correspondance to bring both sides together in a way that we can support each others work. I and at least some others here suspect that despite the best of intentions from DaveG, A.I. has no intention of fostering relations with other groups. Perhaps if DM could simply state whether he would be interested in adopting the examples I mentioned above we could make some progress.

Cheers,
~Albert

"....Celestron or DTG equipment to a star party. "

The reason for this is that the Shop was the sponsor for the Star-B-Q event. For example, so was Coca-Cola, so there were no competitor soft drinks at the event. This should have been explained to you at the time you volunteered to help.

"Democratically elected" or "market driven" it's all just semantics.

And THAT is why I personally don't consider myself an AI member but an A&S subscriber. That's BAD for astronomy in my book so I choose not to go to the starr BQ. Simple, but I'm voting with my feet and wallet.