2006 marks an exciting and successful year for the Ottawa Centre as the Centre has celebrated its 100th Anniversary as the first Centre of the RASC. To help commemorate this, centennial products such as golf shirts, t-shirts, mugs and pins were made with a newly designed centennial logo and sold throughout the year at the Centre meetings.

A highlight of the year was the General Assembly 2006 held in May, on the Victoria Day weekend. This was a great success and the Ottawa GA Committee of 28 volunteers is to be congratulated for a fine job of hosting this huge event. The four day GA included 18 guest speakers, a public lecture, four off-site tours, a barbecue, a wine and cheese reception with live classical music, and a banquet with a five foot Centennial cake. A great time was had by all.

The Ottawa Centre is proud to have the second highest membership in the country out of 28 Centres. Our membership stands at 346 regular members, 9 youth members and 39 lifetime members, for a total of 394. We also have the highest turnout at our monthly meetings, with attendance frequently exceeding 150. The Ottawa Centre is also known for having a high concentration of advanced amateur astronomers and astro-imagers.

Our popular Centre meetings are held on the first Friday of each month at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. The Meeting Chair, Chuck O’Dale, continues the exciting format with an invited guest speaker each month, as well as short talks by members in the first half of the evening. Chuck begins each meeting with a presentation of impressive astrophotos submitted by Ottawa members which are also available to see on our Centre website. This year, we have had the pleasure of listening to several great presentations: Dr. Richard Herd, National Meteorite Collection, Dr. Jan Viezer, cosmic influence on our climate; Mr. Bob Warren, Canadian technology in the Apollo project; Dr. Blyth Robertson, Canadian pioneering in impact structure research; Paul Harrison, Ancient Astronomy in Peru; Dr. Christian Veillet, Director of the Canada France Hawaii Telescope, Dr. Richard Gattinger, Earth IR space imaging technology; Dr. Martine Simard-Normandin, Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope visit; Alan Boyce, Telescope Diaries from South America and Dr. Gordon Osinski, Life and Impact Structures, Canadian Space Agency;

The Annual Dinner, which was held on the 10th of November, also commemorated the Centre’s 100th anniversary. This year, we were privileged to hear Dr. Peter Watson, Professor at Carleton University, speak on Dark Matter/Dark Energy. Dr. Watson dressed as a Victorian gentleman and entertained everyone with his account of the science at the turn of the century and how things have changed with the understanding of energy. Guests again left with a bounty of door prizes, thanks in particular to donations by Meade Telescopes, Focus Scientific, Imaginova and the RASC Ottawa Centre. Centennial Pins were given to each person who attended the dinner.

The Centre’s star party coordinator, Alain Beaudoin, organized six public events this year, at three of which the weather cooperated. Other events were in support of the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology such as Astronomy Day, Halloween night and Winter Solstice.

The Centre's Fred Lossing Observatory, managed by Al Seaman, continues to be well used by members, with a total of 27 paid up "keyholders" who have full access to observatory equipment. In addition, numerous other members use FLO as a dark site to set up their own equipment. Overall usage seems to be down a bit, at least partly due to an unusual amount of bad weather this year. There were no noteworthy equipment problems this year, and maintenance work was largely limited to the usual routine things; grass and tree trimming in the summer, and snow clearing in the winter. Again, this past winter to site was accessible throughout the winter. The FLO site was also surveyed in detail and a site map prepared, a preparatory step for future improvements.

The SMARTscope team has been working steadily towards the goal of initiating web-based imaging operations at the Pett Observatory. The primary objective during this time has been to make the observatory equipment operate reliably. SMARTscope has now been operated remotely on a number of evenings, with good pointing accuracy and good focus. It was demonstrated in live operation at the November Centre meeting. The session was very successful, with the targets being selected by the audience and then quickly imaged onto the auditorium screen. The next step is to complete software configuration to allow for webbased operation. Initially, a web-based scheduling tool will be developed to allocate slots for different observers. Over time, the web interface will see improvements, and the transition made to having the observatory available for a wider range of users and purposes. There has been a tremendous effort over this past year by the SMARTscope team with significant contributions of Tim Cole, Daryl Corbett, Al Seaman and team leader Doug George.

The Stan Mott Book Librarian, Richard Kicksee, has been busy this year with the weeding of old books and magazines to make room for new up-to-date publications. A complete inventory was completed and surplus books sold. The money raised was put towards new acquisitions. Also, Richard has been making changes and improvements to the old cataloguing system and hopes to have an extensive catalogue available on the Centre’s website with the ability to see all books available and to reserve.

In the awards department, Brian McCullough won the Observer of the Year Award presented at the annual dinner, and the Astronotes article of the year award went to Chuck O’Dale for his two-part article on Searching for Impact Structures.

Finally, it is with great sadness to announce the passing of Centre member, Peter Williams, who passed away on June 10, 2006 at his home in Phoenix, Arizona. Peter was the founding member of the Centre’s SMARTscope project. Peter, with his enthusiastic nature and passion for astronomy, is missed by all who knew him.