Sat, Sep 20 2014 - Hiking, Astronomy & Stargazing with Telescopes at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center + Dinner & Great Weather! (View Original Event Details)
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We were fortunate to have beautiful clear fall weather tonight and enjoyed fantastic naked-eye views of the Milky Way, the “Summer Triangle,” Polaris, and even the 2-million-light-years-distant Andromeda Galaxy. At dusk our friendly CEAstronomy.org hosts set up about 15 telescopes of all shapes and sizes on their dark-sky observing field and treated us to up-close views of a wide variety of deep-sky objects including amazing distant nebulas and double stars. Our indoor Astronomy meeting and program were also very enjoyable prior to the observing session and included a delicious potluck dinner. Earlier in the afternoon we AOCers enjoyed hiking about 4 miles of the gorgeous lakeside and creekside trail system at the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center, and were rewarded along the way with sightings of beautiful birds.
-Submitted by Charlie, late Saturday night, Sep 20
"Murder Creek" Postscript on Sep 22:
Thanks to Jerry Colley for his "detective work" in researching the fascinating 200-year-old historical origin of "Murder Creek," the lovely rocky stream that we crossed and walked beside during our hike. Also it's the name of the road at Charlie Elliott where the Astronomy Club meets where huge Margery Lake and Bennett Lake are both formed from the headwaters of that large stream. In a nutshell, in 1788 there was a bloody murder of a party of traveling "tories" in that area by Creek indians and their cohorts. One of the murderers was captured - then tortured and murdered in retaliation at the very site of the crime - at "Murder Creek!"
Here's an excellent link to the fascinating morbid story:
http://www.newtama.com/2012/10/the-legend-of-murder-creek.html
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