StarLog - February 22, 2004

Meeting David Levy

Yesterday, I went to the monthly meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City. Mike Myer (a local observing buddy I became acquainted with a few years ago) is a member, and told me that David Levy would be speaking at this month's meeting, and invited me to come along. I, of course, had heard about his comet discoveries, read his monthly "Star Trails" column in Sky&Telescope, and occasionally listened to his weekly radio broadcast via the internet. I was thrilled for the opportunity and immediately started making plans.

I was wanting to go for another reason, too. For the last couple of years, I have had email correspondence with some of the members of the ASKC, but I had never had the opportunity to meet them face-to-face.

David Levy spent the previous night with two of the ASKC club members, Vic & Jen Winters, who were friends of his. I think their original plans were to get to the meeting somewhere between 6:00-6:15, and set up for the 7:00pm presentation. However, after supper, they all got entranced by seeing the thin sliver of Moon in the west, and they stared at it for several minutes before going on to the meeting (Yes, he still loves observing that much!).

Mike, his 10-year-old daughter Miranda, and I arrived at UMKC (the meeting site) about 6:10. David Levy, of course, wasn't there yet. I spent my time getting introduced to several of the ASKC members, who I've only known by email contact. One of them I already knew. Eric Flescher is the Astronomical League Comet Award Coordinator, and years ago, he was my "gifted class" teacher in high school. I recognized him right away, but he didn't know me until I introduced myself. Then he introduced me to his wife, and noted how I was a lot taller now (as well as wider, but he didn't say that). He even remembered what years I attended school there, and said that he still had one of my computer programs that I wrote for the class. He, of course, spent several minutes trying to prod me to observe some of the comets this year, and start earning his certificate.

Another man (I didn't get his name) was showing off a homemade telescope he had made, that was a true binocular newtonian. It was a 12-14" sonotube which housed two identical 6" mirrors, side by side. They each had their own secondary stalk, which directed the light to one of two identical eyepieces. Both mirrors were f/5, and he claimed that with the eyepieces he was using, it offered a 3� field of view. I found the design to be intriguing, but he still had some problems to work out, such as the interpupillary distance between eyepieces couldn't easily be changed (making it hard to use at a public star party), and the eyepieces were mounted directly to the sonotube without a focuser, meaning that you could only exchange eyepieces if they were parfocal to the original pair.

Finally, David Levy and company arrived about 6:45pm. He was a little taller than I'd imagined, and very friendly. The bad news is that he had to get started on preparing his PowerPoint slides as soon as he arrived. Good thing he did, because the projector wasn't wanting to cooperate. It was about 7:30pm before everything was finally working properly. I wanted to go down front and help him out, but with it being my first time there, and nobody knowing me, I figured it was best if I just sat in my seat and let the other computer experts handle it. Being delayed while waiting for the club's computer gurus to fix the video problems, he started ad-libbing and making jokes about how much he loved technology.

The presentation itself was about an hour and a half long, and was basically his life story. He mentioned that he had been fascinated by comets since childhood, and determined that he was going to discover one someday. After college, he even moved out to Arizona, so that he could have more clear nights to search. It took him over ten years of searching to find his first. Then within a year, he had found two more. Not bad, he thought, one every six months wasn't going to be too hard. He has now discovered 21 comets. He said that it isn't really that easy, though. He says he still looks just as hard and often as he ever has, but it's been over 10 years since his last discovery.

He also spent some time showing pictures of Shoemaker-Levy 9, as it impacted into Jupiter. Jupiter was the first thing he ever looked at when he got his first telescope (a 6" reflector he still owns), and he found it poetic that the last comet he ever discovered (to date) crashed into it.

The final part of his talk was regarding last years total solar eclipse in Antarctica. He described some of his misadventures on the trip. For instance, the group thought they'd be smart, and take along a porta-potty, but they forgot to bring the key to unlock the padlock on the door. Also, some of their tents were completely destroyed in a harsh storm, and the whole group had huddle together in a small metal hut.

David Levy mentioned that from their position in Antarctica, the Sun was just hovering above the horizon, but instead of sinking, it just seemed to roll along the horizon. They were able to snap some gorgeous eclipse pictures.

After the talk, he signed autographs. I didn't have any books authored by him, but my college library did, so I brought it along for him to sign for the students. Mike brought in a few books for him to sign for both himself and his daughter. Miranda's current favorite book is "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov, and she wanted David Levy to sign it. Being a nice guy, he signed the book, and even added a little drawing of a comet with a smiley face for her.

Afterwards we wandered outside and noticed that the sky was partly clear. Some of the members decided to chance it, and head on over to Powell Observatory to try to get a little observing in (the club owns the observatory). It was about a 30 minute drive, and by the time we arrived, the sky had turned completely overcast. David Levy came along, and the club members gave some of us first-time visitors a tour of the facilities. The main dome houses a 30" reflector on a fork mount. Very impressive looking. They also have a 12" LX-200 with a camera permanently mounted to the eyepiece to use as a robotic asteroid tracker. Of course, the facility used several computers to control the telescopes, so I felt right at home.

We chit-chatted for an hour or two, hoping the skies would clear up. Amongst the rest of us amateur astronomers, David Levy was just one of the guys. Most of the club members use the observatory for tracking down magnitude-20 asteroids (indeed, several of the members have been credited with discovering numerous asteroids), so David poked a little fun at them about how disappointed they must feel when their discoveries turn out to be asteroids instead of comets.

The skies never did get better, so Mike, Miranda, and I headed home (a 90 minute drive) shortly after midnight. Miranda was having fun, and wanted to spend the night at the observatory and sleep with the telescopes. She stayed wide awake the entire time we were at the observatory (after a quick doze on the way there), but she fell asleep shortly after we left.

I had a great time, met a lot of interesting people, and look forward to doing it again sometime. It's good to finally be putting faces to some of the names I've corresponded with on various astronomy-related message boards.