First Light Event brings the night sky closer to home
By Vanta Coda III, RealWV
The moon hangs bright on the crisp spring night of Saturday, Mar. 28. Residents converse and children play games while they wait in line to see the highlight of the Morgan County Observatory’s First Light Event: the new telescope.
Over 300 people showed up for the event, making it the observatory’s biggest since becoming operational in 2001, when they installed the previous telescope. Five board members of the Morgan County Observatory made the renovations and installed the new telescope: Randal Stewart, John Hrubec, Kathryn Krenn, Teri Bellows, and Lisa Stewart.
“There’s no paid person here,” said board member Kathryn Krenn. “We exist strictly on donations from the community, and we’ve been very successful in this renovation, getting a number of grants from local foundations, and that’s how we funded all of this, and then we put in the labor to do all the construction work. We’re just a board of enthusiastic amateur astronomers.”
In January 2025, the Morgan County Observatory Foundation board decided to purchase and install a new telescope. The chosen telescope was a Meade Instruments LX850 LCF, paired with a tripod system that automatically calculates celestial bodies and objects, tracking them in an equatorial path. It stays with the target even as the Earth moves on its axis. This upgrade significantly improves upon the observatory’s previous telescope, a 1967 Ferson Optics telescope, donated by the U.S. Naval Academy to the Morgan County School System in 1997 and housed in the observatory in 2001.
“It took us from July to when we finished in October to take the old telescope out — it was 3,000 pounds,” said board member John Hrubec. “Computer technology has blown astrophotography and astronomy wide open to a lot more people because it’s accessible and less expensive. So you can really get some good results, and it is better than the 1967 technology that was found on the other telescope.”
In addition to the new telescope, the Morgan County Observatory Foundation refurbished its classroom and observatory dome building. The classroom is now large enough to house the inflatable planetarium for educational purposes and other events.
At the observatory’s First Light Event, board members and volunteers welcomed community residents from the Eastern Panhandle and neighboring states, including Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The event included use of the Observatory Foundation’s inflatable planetarium and a craft room where families made star maps and other space-themed arts and crafts. The foundation also provided snacks, water, and astronomy items for purchase to help fund its facility and foundation.
Visitors got to look at the moon up close with the new telescope before nightfall, and soon after, the line to see the fifth planet from the sun stretched out the door. As the stars peek through the black blanket of night against the gentle rolling hills of Morgan County, a new chapter begins for the Morgan County Observatory and its foundation, filling the night sky with laughter and wonder.
