by Mike Edstrom

STELLAR SUMMER ACTIVITIES The sides of the new bunkhouse are all in place, a few of the roof rafters are left to put up, great progress is being made.  We look forward to completely enclosing the bunkhouse so we can install the air conditioners and work in a cooler place, more to come.

It was a very busy late June and early July at the Dark Site; you should have seen Rene’s article about the Girl Scouts visiting on June 24th and 25th. Then on June 30th and July 1st we hosted a group of 22 7th to 10th grade students and 7 chaperones from Eddie V. Grey Wetlands Center in Baytown, TX. We had several HAS members: Rene Gedaly, Allen Wilkerson, Ed Fraini, Don Selle, Steve and Amelia Goldberg, Brain Cudnik and myself using the three observatory scopes, Allen’s Meade, Ed’s dob, Amelia’s dob and my observatory to show them planets and several Messier objects once the clouds cleared. I was very impressed as the students stayed up very late as many of them just laid on the ground in the observatory parking lot looking up and said they had never seen so many stars. It made the effort we all put into the evening worthwhile.

Please watch the web site for future announcements of training sessions on the new MX and 12” RC scope in the observatory which everyone that has been trained on using the observatory must take.

Summer constellations are up and waiting for you at the Columbus Dark Site, hope to see you there soon.