We hope you all are having a wonderful, safe, and healthy holiday season.  As we look forward to the new year, we thought it would be a good idea to reinforce details about the certification process.  If it has been a month since you sent in a certification request to one of the Observing Program Coordinators, it is time to send an email inquiry to the Coordinator to ensure that it was received or get an update on its status.

To see more details on how the process works and to understand what your expectations should be, please read on…

We would first like to request that you be patient with the process and the Coordinators.  We are all volunteers, and like everyone else, we are all stressed by the holidays as well as COVID-19.  This means that some activities may take longer than normal.  This is how the system is supposed to work:

• Coordinators try to reply to electronic requests immediately (a day or two), but know that we do travel from time to time, so it may take a week or more.  If it is a paper submission and if you provide an email address, the Coordinator will send an email to that email address.
• Coordinators try to send certifications to those who have earned them within a week or two.  An email from the Coordinator should explain what to expect.  If you have not received it within a month, then please recontact the Coordinator and ask for an update or status.  We have experienced issues that have necessitated a longer review time; illnesses, travel, and problems with the submissions, but our goal is that communications (through email) will explain these situations.
• If it has been over a month, and you have not received any information from the Coordinator, please contact one of the Observing Program Directors and we will follow up on the situation.  (Contact information for the Observing Program Directors can be found on this web page: click here.)

Congratulations on your successes and good luck on your future observations.  Be safe and stay well.

The Astronomical League has a downloadable certificate available for the Great Conjunction.  Get one here.

The Astronomical League is excited to announce that we will be offereing a Special Observing Award to commemorate the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2020.  For more information check out the web page: click here.

In February, the Perseverance Lander will reach Mars and land in Jezero Crater.  To commemorate this event we will be having a NASA Observing Challenge.  For more information go to our NASA Observing Challenge web page.  Get your image of Mars now while it is positioned well.

One of our members, Robert Brayton, has assembled a Mars map that he has graciously agreed to provide to folks who are pursuing the Mars Observing Program.  More information on how to get your copy is near the bottom of the Mars Observing Program web page:  https://test.astroleague.org/mars-observing-program

Our cousins at AAVSO are offering a free set of Webinars.  I checked it out, and there seem to be some great topics coming.  We have worked closely with AAVSO on a number of occassions and are very happy that they brought these to our attention.