Monthly Archives: June 2017


Pioneer Days

Things are crazy busy here at Wa-chur-ed Observatory, but I wanted to take a minute to tell you about the event we did last weekend, the Linn County Pioneer Picnic in Brownsville, OR.  This was a 3 day event filled with all manner of family fun.  We were located at the end of the vendor area, next to a rock climbing wall provided by the OR National Guard.  That drew a lot of people to the area, but was also a distraction.  In any case, it was great fun to watch kids climb the wall – especially the little ones, […]


The Eagle and the Unnamed

M16, the Eagle Nebula, is a beautiful and often photographed object in the southern sky (when viewed from the northern hemisphere).  It is the northern-most of a series of well known objects in the area, including M17, M18, M20, and M8.  But in this photo M16 is in the lower right corner and the object in the upper left is farther north.  What’s interesting about this is that although the object in the upper left is quite bright (and although smaller than M16, not particularly small compared to typical astronomical targets), it has no common name.  In fact, so far […]