4-21-12

We took a field trip to Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, WI. This was the same day we went to Genoa City for the fish boil. We arrived at around 11:00 AM.

I was at this observatory in Feb 1978 when I was 12 for a class trip. I am a big astronomy fan and was glad to find a chance to come back. We got here in time for the noon tour. Before the tour, we stepped outside to where a group of people were gathered around a telescope. Our tour guide and astronomer Richard Dreiser who worked there was projecting an image of the sun on a white piece of paper. We had a chance to see sunspots. How cool! too bad there was not an eclipse that day, it would have been more crowded too 🙂

Looking for sunspots

We were not disappointed, there were sunspots that day.

After that we began the tour. The best part was going into the main observatory to see the BIG telescope. The facility also houses two smaller scopes in the two other domes on the other side of the huge building.

Just as impressive was the outside, Here is the main observatory plus the two lesser ones. The building was too wide for my old camera to get it all in one shot so I split it up..