We had nine cars start seven MGs, one Jeep Cherokee and one Porsche. One of the MGs (a'65 B with top down) was a guest from Wisconsin; Bob Laewenstein came down from Williams Bay to run with us up to Yerkes Observatory where we had a tour. Thank you, Bob for taking the time to give us a tour of the facility. Bob is in the green hat on the right.

The weather was doing well, a little cool and overcast on the way north, but otherwise pretty nice. Our first close up look at Lake Geneva was showing about six inch chop from a little wind, which seemed to be discouraging pleasure boaters.

A highlight of the tour was a visit to Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisonsin. This is the home of the world's largest refracting telescope with a 40 inch object lense. This is housed under the larger dome on the building. The alignment mechanism is an equitorial mount, where the primary axle is aligned with the rotational axis of the earth. As the telescope is tilted toward the horizontal the floor of the observing room is raised to bring the observer to the height of the viewing lense.

As the telescope is pointed to different areas of the sky the entire dome is rotated to place the opened vertical viewport in front of the object lense. The room is not heated. The indoor temperature is kept near to the outdoor temperature to minimize optical distortion from the temperature variations of the air when the dome is opened.

As we left the observatory, the rain started and kept up gently for the rest of the day. We went into Lake Geneva where we all gathered at "Popeyes" for lunch. After lunch, the tour ran back to Crystal Lake. Some teamed up to run back to the starting point, while others struck off to make their own way home. See tour report in June Driveline.