There is not much flat land on my hill. However, there is plenty of flat land in the pasture below the observatory. No cows to contend with! So, if anyone wants to setup out there they can but it is about 100 yards away. If anyone wants to scope all night I will arrange the party house to be open all night with kitchen/tv/heat etc... Just let me know when you arrive. This is a small house down below ours.

I look forward to seeing everyone and I think you will enjoy the visit and tour. It never gets cloudy, foggy, cold, or hot at my house! It’s always pitch dark! We aim to please!

It would be better if we can roll the roof off. Let's postpone if raining. If we have to postpone till May 8 then I will be prepared for rain or shine on that date.

Directions:
From Hwy. 280 take 63 South and go 4 Miles. There will be the turn off to the left to go to Wind Creek State Park keep going to the next road to the right. This is in front of Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Take a Right onto Walker Ferry Road / County Road 20 and my house is the first drive on the left. Red brick house on the hill.

Going 63 North you will see 2 green houses on the left. The next road to the left just over the hill will be Walker Ferry Road. This is just before the Church ( Mt. Zion Baptist ) on the right. If you pass the Church or the road that goes to Wind Creek State Park you have gone too far. Once on Walker Ferry Road / County Road 20 my house is the first drive on the left. Red brick house on the hill.

The shocked quartz is important and is as close as we will ever come to "absolute proof" of the impact origin of Wetumpka. Evidence qualifying as "absolute proof" is hard to come by for geological events that occurred millions of years ago in any sort of investigation, and studying impact events presents some special challenges. Shocked quartz is the highest standard of proof, as it is only found (as far as we know) in impact craters and nuclear weapons test sites. To form, shocked quartz textures require many millions of atmospheres of pressure and those must be applied within a few nanoseconds.

The shocked quartz turned up in the last set of samples that we looked at and were in some of the smallest grains seen under the microscope. They were not very obvious at first and required a lot of looking. I was greatly relieved when I found them a few weeks ago, as I viewed their discovery as finally ending the debate over origin for Wetumpka. The Mayor and her staff were obviously pleased with our discovery, which I announced on February 27 at a City Council meeting and news conference. Dr. Peter Schultz, of Brown University, had reviewed our evidence and the microscope slides the day before and was there at the news conference to back up my claims.

Of my announcement on February 27, I think we can safely say that it has been a long time since a few tiny mineral fragments from deep underground created such an uproar in a small southern town. The avalanche of publicity and interest over the past few days has been amazing.

Russell

I think it would be a tremendous idea to make it an annual event out here at the planetarium. I am open to suggestions on what we should do this year. If you want to put it before the AAS and get feedback from last year’s participants, on what we could do better, we will do it right! I like the idea of the telescope workshop; we get a lot of questions on that topic.

Let’s consider it a "GO" and start working on the details......

 Rick.