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bookmark_borderFree Community Telescope Observatory Night

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Montgomery County Community College will host the first of three spring semester Community Observatory Nights on Wednesday, Feb. 20, from 7-9 p.m.in its state-of-the-art Observatory and on the Observation Deck, weather permitting. The Observatory is located on the third floor of the College’s Advanced Technology Center, Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. Please call the observatory hotline, 215-641-6460, an hour before the scheduled event for information about cancellation.

Community nights are free of charge and are open to the public, and astronomy clubs are welcome. Students from the College’s Introduction to Astronomy course volunteer during the event to share their knowledge and assist visitors with using the telescope and viewing equipment.

The Observatory and Observation Deck are features of the College’s 60,000 square-foot Advanced Technology Center. The Observatory features a 16-inch MEADE Schmidt-Cassegrain research-level telescope and a 90-mm Coronado telescope for safe observation of the sun. All of the instruments are controllable both in the classroom as well as in the Observatory itself. Through a fiber network, images can be downloaded for further study and comparison and can be used in online courses.

bookmark_borderThe Mayor on Gun Control

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“Today President Obama and Vice President Biden unveiled a comprehensive set of concrete proposals that will help us reduce the gun violence that occurs every day in our cities and to prevent mass shootings like the one that occurred just over one month ago in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Just three days after the Newtown tragedy occurred, the mayors of our three largest cities and other Conference of Mayors leaders sent an open letter to the President and the Congress, which urged immediate action. We called on the President to exercise his powers through Executive Order and on Congress to introduce and pass legislation to make reasonable changes in our gun laws and regulations. Specifically, we called for universal background checks, a ban on both assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and strengthening the penalties for straw purchases of guns.

“Clearly the President listened to our call. We applaud him for issuing executive actions to reduce gun violence. And we applaud him for calling for critically needed legislation and urge Congress ‘to do the right thing’ and institute universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and strengthening penalties for gun trafficking.

“As mayors of major cities, many of us do all we can to reduce gun violence, but our efforts are too often thwarted by trafficking from other areas and states. The President’s plan, which would institute background checks nationally and crack down on those who buy guns for the express purpose of turning around and selling them to criminals, will be an enormous help to us.”