The Columbus Astronomical Society
The Columbus Astronomical Society
by Tony Hoenbrink
In the early 1970's the Society seriously began to fall on hard times. Membership and attendance at functions had been steady if reduced through the late 1960's, but now began to decline precipitously. The February, 1972 meeting drew a grand total of eight. Two major expeditions were mounted that summer and fall to northern Ohio to observe grazing occultations, but otherwise occultation observing all but ceased as the most active observers drifted away from the Society. By 1973 the Society's small but fairly steady contributions of scientifically useful observations, which had begun some twenty years before with the old Observation Group at McMillin, had completely dried up.
Finding officers became a chronic problem. The 1971 and 1972 elections were both held three months late because of difficulties in finding nominees and getting a quorum to show up at a meeting to elect them. Over these two years more and more meeting programs consisted of films instead of live speakers. Sometimes this was because the officers didn't want to go to the trouble of finding a speaker, but more often it was because they had been embarrassed too many times by asking a speaker to take the time to prepare a talk, only to have a crowd of a dozen people or less come to hear it. For many meetings there was no program at all.
There were exceptions. On October 26, 1973 the Society held a gala reception at Capital University as Dr. Hynek, now chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University, made an official visit to the organization that he had left almost twenty years before (13). The scruffy condition of the Society might have been a minor embarrassment to some of the older members, but nevertheless the affair was well-attended and memorable. Ironically, the Columbus chapter of Moonwatch was shut down shortly afterwards when its new landlord, Riverside Hospital, asked the Society to leave because they could no longer spare the room. The Society's library and equipment, long stored in the Moonwatch room, were moved to Borror Observatory.
In 1974 no nominees for any of the offices could be found, so no officers were elected. No one was really in charge, and work was done only when a member took it upon himself to do it. There were seldom any speakers at the meetings; only an occasional film, if indeed there was a program at all. The meetings themselves ceased for a while. No business meetings were held between June, 1974 and February, 1975. There was no annual picnic because nobody organized one, and there was no Appreciation Dinner because there were no speakers to appreciate.
In contrast, the public programs continued to be successful. Since the mid-1950's the Society's main thrust had been astronomy education, mainly through its public programs, the backbone of which were the Metropark programs. 1973 had seen some changes. After nearly ten years the CSP had become passé and was discontinued at the end of 1972. It was replaced by a series of monthly astronomy talks, followed if possible by observing, which covered an assortment of topics based around the theme of the different things that could be seen in the sky as the earth made its way around the sun. The name OATS (Once Around The Sun) was chosen for this new format, which started in January, 1973. The now-legendary OATS program was just as popular with the public as the CSP was. Although the Society stopped meeting for much of 1974, the public program schedule continued largely uninterrupted.
In July of 1975 OATS was discontinued and replaced by the Park Astronomy Program (PAP). PAP was similar to OATS, except that instead of twelve monthly programs a year there were a smaller number held at irregular intervals. Their topics were whatever happened to be up in the sky at the time that was interesting, as well as astronomy topics of general interest. The reduction in the number of programs and their more free-form nature made it easier on the handful of members who were still doing them.
Other than that, 1975 was not much different from the previous year. Again there were major problems getting enough members at a meeting to hold elections. It was suggested that the quorum rules be bypassed by sending out ballots in The Prime Focus and having members mail them in, but the question became moot when once again not enough nominees could be found. No officers were elected and membership continued to decline.
The situation of having no officers could not continue indefinitely and the dissolution of the Society was becoming a real possibility. Realizing this, the Society in November sanctioned the creation of an executive committee of veteran members to run things until officers could be found. Frustrated by the Society's drift over the past two years and feeling that the creation of the executive committee merely institutionalized it, a group of younger members surprised the rest of the Society at the February, 1976 meeting by presenting a full slate of nominees for office. This was opposed by the executive committee, which felt that the slate was too young to handle the responsibility. The committee blocked an attempt to open nominations by invoking a technicality in the by-laws.
A sharp dispute ensued which quickly took on a personal nature. The executive committee cancelled the March meeting in order to delay nominations until it could find its own candidates. The April meeting was cancelled as well, but some members called a meeting to order at Battelle anyway and nominated the new slate. The executive committee met a week later and declared the April meeting unconstitutional, along with all business transacted at that meeting. It also blocked the mailing of the May issue of The Prime Focus, which contained the announcement of the April meeting's nominations.
A general meeting was finally held in May. It was agreed that the executive committee would, in accordance with the constitution, appoint a nominating committee which would present nominees at the September meeting. The executive committee chose the members of the nominating committee entirely from its own ranks, and not surprisingly none of the nominees it presented at the well-attended September meeting were among those nominated at the disputed April meeting. A raucous debate followed, and one by one each member of the April slate was nominated from the floor after surviving a credentials challenge. The two factions eventually settled upon Barney Golding, a three-term president from the 1960's, as a compromise candidate for president. The other three offices and the open Advisory Board seats, however, were hotly contested.
The new officers were elected and duly installed at the October meeting. The entire affair, which wags would later dub the "Pizza Hut Putsch," (14) actually involved only about a dozen members on both sides. The rest of the membership was left wondering why suddenly everybody wanted to be an officer after all four offices had gone begging for the previous two years. Those two years of disorganization, followed by nine months of bickering back and forth in meetings and in the pages of The Prime Focus, had exacted a toll on membership. By late 1976 it had slid to just forty.
The controversy over the elections had quite forcefully made the Society aware that there was no longer a complete copy in existence of the 1953 constitution. This had gone unnoticed, apparently for years, until 1976 when the Society for the first time had something like a constitutional crisis. Indeed, much of the debate that year had centered on what procedures for meetings and elections were mandated by a constitution whose actual text was no longer extant. Barney Golding undertook to plow through the old minutes and newsletters to piece together the constitution and its amendments, a process which was not completed until late the following year.
In the summer of 1977 the Metroparks cancelled the PAP because of concern over rising night-time vandalism, although it did let the annual Perseid Watch take place at Highbanks as scheduled that August. That fall Borror was burglarized. Thieves made off with a 3.1-inch refractor and several eyepieces. The Society had no insurance on its property in the observatory. For that matter, it wasn't even known for sure just what property in the observatory belonged to the Society and what belonged to the YMCA. Neither the perpetrators nor the loot were ever found. These events did not detract from the festive mood that September when the Society held its 30th anniversary bash. Featured at the meeting were displays from the past and veteran members reminiscing. A talk on the Society's history was given by Dr. Protheroe of OSU.
Provided with leadership for the first time in three years, the Society began to regain some of its lost health. In May, 1977, the first Mall Show, a CAS promotional display featuring telescopes and other equipment, was held in Eastland Mall. It was a smashing public relations success. The Mall Show later moved to Northland and became an annual event. It generated much publicity but seemed to have little effect on membership levels, so it was discontinued after 1986. In early 1978 the Metroparks also allowed the resumption of CAS public programs, due to public demand and the fact that cancelling the programs six months earlier had yielded no significant reduction in vandalism.
Tragedy struck in May, 1979 when Bud Stewart died. In memory of one of the Society's charter members and guiding lights it was decided to endow the Bud Stewart Award. The Award is given at the discretion of the Board for meritorious service to amateur astronomy in central Ohio. It is the highest honor that the Society can pay.
In September it was decided to host the 1981 Great Lakes Regional Convention of the Astronomical League, the same event that the Society had done so well with 22 years earlier. The OSU Astronomy Club was co-host, and the joint planning committee of the two organizations met for the first time that month and continued to meet monthly thereafter.
While all this was going on, Borror Observatory was in a steep decline. Increasing skyglow in the area during the late 1970's had begun to severely hamper observation. The problem was compounded by the fact that over the years the Society's primary observing tastes had gradually shifted from the planets, moon, and occultations to deep sky, which has much more exacting requirements for darkness. Another major problem was the physical deterioration of the observatory building. Despite the 1971 agreement, the YMCA continually neglected necessary maintenance. This, along with the YMCA's apparent ingratitude for the voluminous amounts of free labor being supplied by the Society, began to anger many members. On the other hand, incidents of hooliganism by members in and around the observatory steadily increased in the late 1970's and drew the ire of the park management. The relationship between the Society and the YMCA began to sour. Member Charles Hafey now held the post of observatory director and public nights were still held on a more or less monthly basis, but Borror had clearly seen its best days (15). Many in the Society yearned for a replacement.
The idea of a Society-owned observatory had been kicked around since the late 1950's but it wasn't until the 1970's, when worsening skyglow made it increasingly difficult to find decent skies around Columbus, that it was seriously investigated. In 1972 an informal observatory committee met to discuss the issue and it was the subject of several Advisory Board meetings in the ensuing years. In 1978 an official Observatory Committee was formed and an extensive site selection process was begun. What the Committee had in mind was an observatory located in an outlying Metropark, with the Metroparks donating land and hopefully some funds. It was expected that the Society would also have to do some fundraising. In 1980, after discussion with the Metroparks, a site in newly opened Slate Run Metropark was chosen. Brent Archinal and president Robin de Santos drew up a formal proposal for a joint venture between the Society and the Metroparks to construct a public observatory at Slate Run. In April a delegation presented the proposal to the Metroparks, who liked the idea in principle but said that they could not act upon it unless the Society first became a non-profit institution.
To this end it was decided to incorporate the Society and revamp the 1953 constitution to conform to IRS requirements for non-profit status. This was not a new idea: Making the Society a tax-exempt corporation was something that had been discussed on and off since 1959, and in September of 1966 the constitution had been heavily amended to conform to the then current non profit regulations, but the lengthy legal process had never been followed through to completion.
The considerable work of drawing up articles of incorporation and a new constitution was carried out by de Santos and a few others. These were presented to the membership at the May, 1980 meeting, where they got a mixed reception. Extensive and increasingly acrimonious debate followed in the ensuing Advisory Board meetings, due not so much to the business at hand but rather to personal friction among de Santos and several members. The working relationships among the officers and Board members deteriorated and the situation climaxed when a scuffle broke out during a public night at Borror on July 4, 1980. These events eventually led de Santos to resign as president and leave the Society (16).
Considerable confusion followed. Vice president Bill Burton resigned with de Santos, while the treasurer had quit a few weeks earlier in an unrelated dispute. This left the Society with three of its four elected offices suddenly vacant. A caretaker leadership was put together with members of the Advisory Board. The August issue of The Prime Focus, containing de Santos' resignation letter, was prepared but at the urging of the leadership the editor did not mail it. This eventually proved to be a tactical mistake. Suppressing the August Prime Focus was later explained as an attempt to hide the Society's disarray from outsiders, in particular the YMCA landlords of Borror, but it was interpreted by some as an attempt to prevent de Santos' letter from being seen by the membership. The Prime Focus editor himself eventually came to believe that this was the case and some unpleasant words were exchanged. The resignation letter is said to have been displayed at both the September and October general meetings, but this is a matter of dispute. One way or another, friction between the editor and the acting officers ultimately caused the editor to resign and leave the Society. The membership opened the November Prime Focus and found printed therein his scathing resignation letter, along with de Santos' letter from three months earlier. By now a number of members had tired of the continuing buffoonery and had drifted away from the Society. In early 1981 the paying roster again stood at just forty, the same as in the dark days of late 1976.
Things could only get better in 1981. The new slate of officers took control and the new constitution and articles of incorporation, little changed from what de Santos had originally presented the previous year, were passed and ratified. The new constitution was closely modelled on the 1953 document, the principal differences being the adoption of an official address for the Society (a post office box) and the abolition of the standing committees (which for years had been largely moribund anyway). A mass of detail was put in to comply with the State of Ohio's regulations regarding public corporations. Details about meetings, elections, and disposal of property were also included, as it was felt that great specificity in these areas would lessen the chances of a recurrence of the turmoil of 1976.
Ongoing plans for the 1981 regional Astronomical League convention were little affected by these events since virtually all of the organizing was being done by the OSU club. The date of the convention changed several times but was finally set for July 17-19. The affair, held in Sisson Hall on the Ohio Weslyan campus, did not quite measure up to the 1957 gathering. Attendance was a less-than-expected eighty-four, but overall the affair was adjudged by everyone to be a success (17).
The spring of 1982 brought more controversy. Finances had not been good for several years and were worsening, so as an economy measure it was decided to drop the subscription to Sky and Telescope that had been a fringe benefit of membership since the Society's founding in 1947. This move was controversial, but the end of the subscriptions removed a major expense and did much to restore the Society's financial health. After more debate it was decided, also as an economy measure, to drop the Society's membership in the Astronomical League, which dated back to 1954.
The members' observing was not much affected by any of this and might well have been increasing. There were certainly areas where amateur observations could be scientifically useful but few members had any appetite for this. Observing, in particular deep sky observing, was being done for its own sake. In March of 1980 the Society had held its first "Messier Marathon," in the parking lot of Perkins Observatory. The weather cooperated and the observers found one hundred and five objects. 1981's affair was clouded out, but in 1982 one hundred and nine objects were found, tying a world record which still stands today. The Messier Marathon has since become an annual event for the hard-core observers in the Society. At the October, 1982 meeting the Stewart Telescope was unveiled to the membership. The blank for the telescope's 16" mirror had been owned by Bud Stewart for many years and he finally donated it to the Society in 1975. Soon afterwards work began on the mirror as part of the fledgling CAS observatory project. Grinding was completed in the spring of 1978 and polishing commenced under the direction of Doug Wereb. Dick Suiter spent the summer of 1982 cloistered in Tom Burns' basement figuring the mirror, while Burns built a Dobsonian mount out back in his garage. John Kerns and Brent Archinal also helped in various ways. All would receive Bud Stewart Awards for their efforts.
The end results of those efforts were superb. The figuring was magnificent. The portable Dobsonian mount was originally intended to be only a temporary arrangement, to get some use out of the mirror while it waited to be conventionally mounted in a (hopefully Society-owned) observatory, but it proved so successful that any thoughts of a permanent mounting were soon forgotten. The instrument was named after the late Bud Stewart and in the years since it has been a regular sight at Society programs and star parties. It will probably remain as the Society's prize possession for many years to come (18).
The Society in fact was starting to become a hotbed of telescope making, led by the Stewart Telescope principals. The Dobsonian revolution of the late 1970's hit the Society hard and it quickly became the telescope mount of choice. Unlike the Society's last big wave of telescope making thirty years earlier, not much optical work was done. Commercially made optics had become too cheap and readily available. On the other hand, homemade Dobsonian mounts were almost de rigueur. Tom Burns and Bill Burton began cranking out Dobsonian telescopes for themselves and others with an almost assembly-line regularity. In July of 1983 Burns conducted a telescope making workshop in which students produced mid-sized Dobsonians. It was an enormous success and several more workshops followed. Over the next two years over one hundred people would build telescopes in this outstandingly successful program.
Small 4 1/4" RFT's mounted on camera tripods also became quite numerous. First popularized by Dick Suiter and John Kerns, these small telescopes attracted many members with their ease of use and high degree of portability. They became known in Society circles as "Pringles" telescopes, because of the vague resemblance of their stubby tubes to the famous potato chip can. Some Pringles got more exotic than any potato chip can: One member painted his tube as a Union Jack, while another gave his a jungle camouflage pattern (the "Combat Pringles").
The telescope building and the growing media hype over Comet Halley's impending arrival gave a boost to membership. A more aggressive Metropark program schedule didn't hurt either. By the end of 1984 membership had climbed back to the pre-1980 level of sixty-five. A new core group of active members was pushing the Society forward.
In October, 1983 the Society's twenty-year relationship with the YMCA through Borror Observatory finally came to an end. Continuing disputes with the YMCA had led to a severe curtailment of activities at the observatory. In September, 1980 the YMCA even went so far as to cancel the Borror contract and order the Society out, but later relented. However, the continuing deterioration of the observatory finally forced its shutdown in January, 1983. In the following months negotiations went on over repairing and reopening Borror, but neither the YMCA nor the Society had much interest and in October the negotiations were ended (19).
The passing of Borror was unlamented, for the Society's observers had long ago abandoned the dilapidated building and its light-polluted skies. During the 1970's deep sky observing came to dominate the Society's tastes and members were constantly on the lookout for dark-sky sites. In this the Society was following a national trend, fuelled to a large extent by the drastic fall over the years in the price/performance ratio of equipment: In 1950 a six-inch reflector was something to boast about; by 1980 such an instrument was regarded as a bare minimum requirement. Good, cheap mirrors and the ingenuity of the Dobsonian mount combined to put big aperture, and hence deep sky objects, within the reach of almost everyone. In the 1950's many Society members were intimately familiar with the features of the moon, but in the 1980's lunar observing had come to be regarded as uncool.
In the last half of the 1970's the parking lot of Perkins Observatory became a popular site. This was greatly encouraged by member Doug Wereb, who was then employed as an observer at Perkins. He often allowed members inside to warm up or use the observatory's 32" Cassegrain. Rapidly increasing skyglow in the early 1980's, however, forced the abandonment of this site and members instead began driving up to Warren Rupp Observatory near Mansfield. Rupp is run by the Richland Astronomical Society and several Society members became active in this organization. The observatory boasts dark skies and, starting in 1985, an optically superb 31" reflector. Even darker skies were available at the Big Brothers Camp in Hocking Hills, which became another popular site.
Membership rose markedly in 1985. Nationwide Comet Halley hype, and Tom Burns' tireless efforts to turn that hype to Society advantage, steered many people into the arms of the Society. Several Metropark programs centered on the comet had stoked public interest to a high level by the time it became visible in small telescopes that fall. A Halley program was scheduled for five consecutive nights in December at Slate Run Metropark. Some of the nights were clear and the public turned out in large numbers to see the comet.
Yet another star party to view Halley was scheduled for Slate Run in January of 1986. Heavy publicity, an outstandingly clear night, and unseasonably warm weather combined to bring out almost five thousand people. The Society and the Metropark rangers were caught flatfooted by the huge turnout and were overwhelmed. Local sheriff's deputies eventually had to be called in for crowd and traffic control. The Society's final Halley program in March drew almost two hundred people in a rainstorm. At the end of 1985 membership topped the one hundred mark for the first time since 1960.
Tom Burns' massive efforts for the Society during the wave of Halley-mania made him a minor celebrity in Columbus. It also earned him a Bud Stewart Award, thus making him the only two-time winner (he had received one four years earlier for his work on the Stewart Telescope).
In 1986 steps were taken to re-establish the Society's relationships with the local university astronomy departments, which had been allowed to whither in the early 1970's. The immediate results were a field trip to Perkins in the spring and actual meetings held at the observatories of Ohio Weslyan and Dennison Universities that fall. The old CAS observatory project, which had been shelved during the turmoil of 1980, was also resurrected. In hopes of cashing in on the momentum generated by Comet Halley, a new Observatory Committee was formed to dust off the 1980 proposal. In February Tom Burns and president Tony Hohenbrink returned to the Metropark management to make another pitch for a Slate Run observatory. Again the Metroparks expressed interest and took the proposal under study, but made no commitments.
Ultimately it all came to naught, but at this point enthusiasm among the membership for an observatory was only lukewarm anyway. Some were even opposed, pointing to the sad fate of Borror as a reason not to tie the Society down to such a large commitment of resources. Others were interested in an observatory only as a convenient place to hold public programs, not for their own observing: Their Dobsonian telescopes were easy to transport and darker skies than any Metropark were readily available to those willing to drive a little farther.
The Society's telescope makers began to innovate. Dick Suiter and John Kerns came up with a system of alt-azimuth setting circles for Dobsonian telescopes and showed it off at several regional conventions. The Stewart Telescope was rebuilt several times, with each succeeding version being more stable and easier to transport that the last. That year a consortium of members even constructed a semi-portable 20" Dobsonian. Bill Burton introduced a major improvement in the Suiter/Kerns alt-az setting circle scheme by replacing the actual circles with surveying instruments. This made the system much easier to use and it drew considerable attention at several conventions, not the least of which was Stellafane, which was visited by a sizeable contingent of members in 1987. Burton appeared in the December, 1987 issue of Sky and Telescope in connection with his setting circles.
The Society had had recurring problems since the early 70's with finding officers and these difficulties continued. It was not until March of 1987 that a new slate could be put together to take over from the 1986 officers, but by now officer problems had become old hat with the membership and no one was much concerned. The public programs continued to be successful. The old CSP was revived in a somewhat different form. Four programs, each one dealing with the sky during one of the four seasons, were put together. Each program was given two months in a row, for a total of eight programs.
During 1987 the Society's paid membership broke the old record of one hundred and twenty-nine that had stood since the Sputnik days some thirty years earlier. On December 8 the annual dinner was held, and it doubled as the Society's 40th anniversary celebration. The feature attraction was the presentation by Tony Hohenbrink of a Society history, assembled from interviews of veteran members and ex-members and back issues of The Prime Focus.
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