The Morgan County Observatory Foundation will be holding Astronomy classes through the Morgan County Schools Adult and Community Education program at the Observatory next to Greeenwood School. The class is open to all ages and will be held on Thursday nights from 6:30 to 8:30PM beginning March 6 and ending March 27, 2008. Class dates have been changed from the original February 21, 2008 and ending March 20, 2008 dates.

No prior experience is necessary; an interest in Astronomy is all that is needed for the class. The instructor will be Kevin Boles who has an extensive background in Astronomy and Observatory operations as founder and president of Morgan County Observatory Foundation.

The class will cover constellations and their mythologies, finding your way around the night sky, types of telescopes and telescope operation, star types and life cycles, cosmology and origins of life, planets and planetary probes, spectrographs and the nature of light, deep space objects and many other subjects of interest in astronomy. The observatory's main telescope, a 16" f14 Cassegrain, and other smaller telescopes will be used on clear nights. Attendees will also be able to bring their own instruments for class use. The class will utilize the popular book Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe by Terence Dickinson. Movies, lecture, multimedia and hands on materials will round out the presentation of this subject.

To sign up for class or for more information, call Laura Hovermale at 304-258-2430 extension 19 or email her at lhoverma@access.k12.wv.us .The Morgan County Observatory is a cooperatively run facility owned by Morgan County Schools and operated by Morgan County Observatory Foundation. For more information on the Observatory, call Kevin Boles at 258-1013, email dynsol@crosslink.net or see their informative website at http://www.nitesky.org