CUAS members, I write this message with a very heavy heart. Sher Hampel informed
me by phone on June 21st that her husband and devoted club member, Guy, passed
away the night before. As I reported last month, he had some pretty severe heart issues but he was improving at home. He was
walking with a cane and evidently took a spill
which resulted in a head injury. Our thoughts
and prayers are with the Hampel family during
this difficult time, including his brother Gary, who
is also a CUAS member.
I can’t pinpoint just when Guy joined CUAS but I
can say with certainty he made an immediate
impact. He helped us design the Prairie Winds
Observatory and provided many architectural
drawings for us to consider. Admittedly Guy and
I didn’t agree on everything, but you can bet he
was there for nearly every open house and exhibition at Market at the Square. He was very
dedicated to CUAS. We will miss him. His obituary is here:
https://www.owensfuneralhomes.com/obituary/
Guy-Hampel.
We had a great night at the Middle Fork River
Forest Preserve on the 18th of June. Willard was
set-up already when I got there and we were
joined by Dr. Paul Ricker and Jeff Kouzmanoff, so four telescopes total. The skies were
beautiful and the people did show up. We had a dozen or so there by 9pm and we
started a live sky program at 9:30pm where my clicker told me we had just shy of 45
there. But that number nearly doubled in the last half hour as a large group carpooled
over from the campground. I lost count quickly but we had over 80 there. Paul
stayed to do some imaging and the other three of us left around midnight. We have
another session coming up in July. Be sure to check the calendar section of this newsletter. If you have a telescope (and even if you don’t), join us!
My thanks to Tyler Linder who gave a nice talk on Near-Earth Objects at the June
meeting. We also continued our discussion on solar power at the observatory. More
on that in the “club news” section. Plus we also had an incident at the observatory
that provided us an opportunity to talk more about security and trespassing at the site.
If you use the site, be sure to read that section of the “club news.” Hopefully that was
a one-time incident but you know the old saying, “hope for the best but prepare for the
worst.”
I hope this newsletter looks better than last months. Pretty bad when one wins an
award for the newsletter and then your computer breaks! Also see the “club news”
section under “light pollution news.” My son just closed on a house they are building
and I was beaming with pride when I saw his external lights! I guess I taught him well!
I hope to see you out under the stars soon!