JULY/AUGUST 2019, NEWSLETTER

Welcome to our first newsletter! The history of how this club started and our current status follows:. We started our club, partly to restore an old observatory on top of a mountain next to Boulder, CO, but primarily to provide amateur astronomers in the area a chance to get together to share common interests. Our Story In 1963, a early Boulder pioneer, Paul Hummel, deeded 236 acres of land at the top of a 8K mountain over looking Boulder and Denver to his church. (see pics below).

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‌ Overhead of Camp Hummel. Can you find the observatory dome?

View of Boulder and Denver skyline from the observatory..

The church camp grew through out the years, and each summer, young kids enjoyed the beautiful area. Then around the 70's a16ft diameter observatory was built and equipped with a state of the art telescope.

However, for some reason the observatory was not used for many years and fell into disrepair.

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Then last year, a group of near by hiking neighbors, noticed the abandoned site and began spearheading the restoration effort. While working on the site, the group formed this club. After several months of work we are close to having an operational observatory.

Status of restoration

We have power working at the dome and have restored the movement of the dome 360 degrees. Upper sky door movement, concrete repair and patching fiberglass dome remain to be done. The original telescope needs a support bracket for the mirror.

Other News We had our first star party at the camp, July 9, on a nice cool and mostly clear night. Appox. 50 high school age church camp children enjoyed Jeff and Alex showing them a close up of the moon, the ring of Saturn and moons of Jupiter. We set up on the basketball court with a nice view.  Our next club meeting is at the clubhouse at Camp Paul Hummel, Aug. 12, 2019, 3pm. Keep your eyes on the skies Roy George - "Vice Pres"

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