bumped

When Denis Grey, RASC Toronto Centre president, showed up at the CAO and announced he was going to be using the C14 telescope to monitor the asteroid occultation (small asteroid 1991RO23 to occult hide 9.4 magnitude star TYC 4668-00597-1 in Pisces for up to 1.6 seconds), I realised that my evening's activities were not going to go as planned.

I had hoped to use the C14, with the assistance of Ian W, Ian D, and others, so to learn it better, become more comfortable with it, as part of my training to be a CAO supervisor. I had not brought any of my own telescope gear so if I was going to do any deep sky observing, it would have to be using Centre equipment. (Or someone's extra 'scope that they weren't using.)

It seemed a little unfair that I got bumped from the C14 for this occultation. An occultation with a very low probability of success (Guy rated it "very low" or 5%). And it seemed, well, frankly, rude, that someone (no matter their rank) should show up in the middle of the weekend, announcing their intentions, without even asking if anyone else already had plans. Or that it wasn't turned into a group activity, something for all members to enjoy, "Hey, let's do this together gang!" I would not have minded at all sharing the work, the discovery. But after this sudden announcement, I had absolutely no interest in working together on it.

[ed: SkyTools3 showed (8090) 1991 R23 blocking HD 2047 at August 31 at 4:21 AM.]