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The neighbors

Wednesday, August 7

Had a great experience Monday evening with the neighbors next door. About 100 feet from the cabin is another cabin, called “Scottage” where the Scott family gathers for  a few days in the summer. The cabin dates from the 1800s and is one of many that were allowed to remain on the land after Rocky Mountain became a national park in 1915. It just happened that much of the extended family was visiting and they treated me to drinks and an amazing dinner. I showed them a mini-slide show of the work I’ve done so far here at Rocky and talked about the night sky and the residency with them.

Angelo explained the cabin name comes from either a combination of the family name and cottage, or summer cottage, stories vary. It’s a great 2-story structure made of logs with 2 porches and a nice enclosed dining area with the usual spectacular view of the mountain range.

The most of the family is involved in forms of publishing, the brother owning several newspapers/websites/blogs in Vermont and the sister owning a small newspaper in southeastern Kansas. Her paper was one of two that were deemed too liberal by Kansas Governor Brownback, something that made her and the family quite happy.

After dinner Angelo and Oliver accompanied me to Sprague Lake to see another space station flyover. Angelo brought his camera, I gave him an extra tripod and he tried some night sky photos, which he had never done.  He got a couple nice ones of the lake and trees silhouetted against the stars.

Just had a text from Ann to say she has arrived at the Denver airport. She’s going to take a SuperShuttle to the Stanley Hotel, an old historic hotel, in Estes Park where I’ll pick her up. It will be great to see her, I think she’ll like the cabin.

Last night I had pretty good success returning to a couple of sites. Shot another space station flyover, this time it flew right over one of the stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper. Bullseye! I had never seen it cross over a major star, though it probably happens frequently.

The air was still last night so I went to Sprague Lake to try and get a shot of the stars reflected on the water. The Big Dipper lined up nicely near the horizon and you can see it clearly in the lake.

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Bullseye!  (click to enlarge pictures)

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