Group Photo

There are 111 cheerful astronomers in this picture. Suggestion: Now go to the "Star Party History Section" and count up how many astronomers we had back in 1989!

The unusual weather this year led me to call it "The Year of Climate Change Writ Large." This year was extremely hot for several days, some said up to 100 degrees. It wasn't until Saturday and especially Sunday that the weather went back to normal. And coupled with the heat, we suffered another indicator of climate change: for the second year in a row, there was so much heat and dryness over Oregon that forest fires were everywhere, which led to several days where major smoke hovered over our site all day and often most of the night.

Below you'll find a close-up of some of the folks in the center of the group. Among those seen in this close-up are ex-Directors Judy and Chuck Dethloff. To their left is Bernie, who's been in every one of our pictures since we moved the site to the Ochocos in 1992. That's true also for Jan Kieski, on the far right, lowest row. Star Talk host Dave Powell doesn't seem to be in this year's closeup. Jeff Henning and his wife Penny appear near the little white refractor....There are others in the picture somewhere, like Howard Kynct (sp?), Margaret McRae, and others whose names I am not sure about, so I won't mis-name or misspell anyone else!

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Those who know me and what I look like: I ask you, who is this doppleganger in the blue t-shirt? Honestly, he's wearing my old set of glasses before I changed from thin gold frames to black nlyon ones! On Friday near sunset the skies looked good, but then roaring out of the south came more of those hated smoke clouds from one of the dozens of wildfires burning all over Oregon.

Finally! Hurray! Sunday morning we woke to crisp temperature of 38 degrees and very bright sunshine!