Skyscrapers annual summer cookout will be held on Saturday July 11th beginning at 3pm. All members and their guests are invited to attend. The cost is only $7.50 per person ($3 for kids under 12) for all you can eat. We will be serving hamburgers, hotdogs, vegi-burgers, clam chowder, corn on the cob, salads and deserts. Some members have asked if it is okay to bring some additional potluck items. Well the answer is “yes”, the more the merrier! Just let me know what you’re planning to bring so that we can coordinate our efforts.

Stephen Hawking is arguably the most famous physicist since Albert Einstein. His decades-long struggle with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), combined with his singular brilliance as a cosmologist, has fascinated both the public and his colleagues in science.

“That’s one small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind.” On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong first set foot upon the Moon and spoke those words. It is perhaps the quote that most people of all cultures throughout the world recognize.

This year we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing which set the stage for a total of 12 men to walk the surface of another world. Dave Huestis gives us a brief review of this crowning achievement and honors all those who made the Moon landings possible.

Dave provides some interesting astronomical tidbits for July.

The song “Love and Marriage,” contains a line that goes, “you can’t have one without the other.” The words aptly describe the open clusters M6 and M7 in Scorpius. This cosmic “horse and carriage” lies in the southern sky above the Scorpion’s stinger.

This month’s contribution is intended for the benefit of those who might not be entirely clear as to what the term “circumpolar” means and why this concept is important for understanding the apparent motions of stars around the sky caused by Earth’s continual rotation about its axis.