Huachuca Astronomy Club—Speakers Rich Swanson Rich Swanson moved to Sierra Vista after retiring from over twenty-one years in the Army, where he served as an intelligence analyst. During his final years in the service, his childhood interest in astronomy was rekindled when his mother-in-law purchased a 5-inch Newtonian reflector for his birthday. After joining the San Angelo Amateur Astronomy Association in Texas, he soon realized he was greatly outclassed by his fellow club members at star parties and public events. He obtained a kitchen pass from his wife and purchased one of the first production 10-inch Meade LX200GPS telescopes available and immediately became the hit of his club, not only because of all the cool gizmos, but also because this scope made him able to find objects in the sky very early in the evening, keeping early visitors to events entertained until other scopes could begin observing. After moving here to Sierra Vista, he decided that he wanted to try some astrophotography and possibly some science, so he purchased a 14-inch version of his Meade. Since this scope weighed 168 pounds, he decided it was time to build an observatory to permanently house his scope. The observatory is named the Windy Mountain Observatory (WMO). The Windy Mountain Observatory (WMO) On Feb. 15, 2008, Rich gave a presentation on the construction of the Windy Mountain Observatory to the Huachuca Astronomy Club. The details of the presentation can be found here. Speakers Index