Announcements

Out of the Woods and Under the Stars

It is looking more and more like the hurricane threat is moving further to the east. Current forecast maps/predictions have us having at least 3 if not 4 good nights at the Deep South Star Gaze (Sunday thru Wednesday nights). Saturday is looking cloudy at night with little or no rain then. So it is time to get excited about attending, no need to cancel anything unless you are further east and under the gun.

As said previously here, you do have the flexibility of shifting days (example -from Saturday - Tuesday to Monday to Thursday). If you want to do that let me know if you have pre-purchased meals so that I can communicate that with the Feliciana Retreat Center.

Note that our two best door prizes will be awarded on Saturday afternoon at 3 pm and on Sunday afternoon at 3 pm.

Update on plans and how the hurricane may affect our schedule at the PAS meeting tonight.

Barry Simon

I write this at about 10:30 pm on Tuesday night and here is what I can speculate on - basically we do not know enough yet to give a clear indication of what we can expect this weekend and beyond.

We do know that the projected Category 2 storm with a name I cannot remember or even enunciate correctly yet is currently projected to hit the coast somewhere near the Mississippi/Alabama line sometime after dark on Friday......but this could all change. Regardless of if that stays accurate Saturday is not looking very good for the Deep South (but Sunday thru Wednesday are still looking ok). We will certainly know more by Wednesday evening and even more on Thursday. I do think that if the track shifts to hit the New Orleans area more directly and to then continue up toward where the Feliciana Retreat Center is there is a much better chance that we may ultimately have to cancel the DSSG altogether......but we are not there yet. I think that decision one way or the other will be made either late on Thursday or early on Friday so stay tuned for that by monitoring this message board regularly.

Note that we do have the October Pontchartrain Astronomy Society meeting tomorrow night at 7 PM at the library. We all may have more information then. If I have more information regarding the weather and the DSSG we will discuss it there.

If we do not cancel completely I believe we will be able to issue refunds to those that are currently registered to attend just overnight on Saturday and partial refunds for those whose stay starts on Saturday but continues into the week. Looking at the Excel spreadsheet that I have for the DSSG, there are 14 people that are just there for Saturday overnight. Some of these are late registrations and I have not deposited those checks yet. I will contact those people (if needed - as who knows, the storm could head due east and not affect us much at all).

A decision giving more details will be made as I said by Thursday evening/Friday morning about just how the storm track will affect us, if at all, more of our days at the DSSG. Stay tuned.

Barry Simon