Honour for Dave McDonald

Dave,

You wouldn't believe it, but I have just got back from
Asteroids,Comets and Meteorites Conference in Baltimore (jet lagged still)where they announced the asteroid honouring names at the banquet early this week.

Many congratulations and well deserved. I'm absolutely thrilled for all the work you have done on asteroid astrometry, AOP and fostering Irish astronomy. Especially your inspirirational role of encouraging me and others to make the effort of following through Observatory Codes,the challenges of the IFAS Advanced Observing Programme,and using a beating stick on some of us to do asteroid astrometry for MPC.

Eamonn A
MPC J62
www.kingslandobservatory.com

Well done Dave! It's a richly deserved honour and you've put an enormous amount of energy into driving the AOP and supporting the astronomical community here.

John

Carl/Michael - I had hoped comments like that would be at least a few days away but you're too sharp for your own good

Thanks John and Eamonn - I appreciate your remarks, especially coming from two stalwarts of the Iris amateur scene.

So Eamonn, I trust you'll be out tonight gathering data for the MPC?

If anyone is interested where 21782 is, here's a link to the JPL Java Applet which has a really nice orbit animation and a bunch of data about the asteroid. At a H mag of about 15.8 (though references vary) its a rock between 2 and 4km in diameter. I shall be auctioning off mining rights for approximately one third of it, the other two thirds will be divvied up into building plots of one acre. No stamp duty

JPL Animation

Cheers
Dave

michaeloconnell wrote:
Well at least they are both small dim objects....
[/quote]

Dave,
It's just as well your a sound skin and can take a
slagging!

I actually laughed out loud at that quip from Mike.

In all fairness,
its great that we in IFAS have guys like you that are
so big into the science side of things.

Barberskum wrote:

It's just as well your a sound skin and can take a
slagging!

I'm not and I can't.

Carl and Michael will be taking delivery of rather special packages in the near future. Then we'll see who's small and dim... :whistle:

Brilliant stuff Dave.
A just reward for really great work done.:woohoo: