Ed Brune Charter High School students are reaching for the stars in more than the usual way. In addition to excelling in school, students at Brune High are being schooled in astrophysics, thanks to an award-winning teacher, a helping hand from NASA scientists, and the new "Baby Hubble" telescope at the Brinton-Franklin Observatory on the BSRC campus. And to top things off the telescope is now fitted with a state of the art digital camera capable of taking ultra high resolution photos of the world beyond.

This year the school is offering an aerospace science class as a part of the high school curriculum. The class teaches basic rocket design and propulsion along with physics. When students in that aeroscience class at Ed Brune Charter School launched their model rockets this fall, they had one very special spectator – no less than Dr. Jay Bergstrahl – a rocket scientist.

Dr. Bergstrahl, research scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was at Big Springs this fall to help install and calibrate the new telescope imaging setup, and while there he also attended the new class. The class was in the process of building a second generation of rockets in hopes of reaching altitudes above 1700 feet. Dr. Bergstrahl took time out to attend one of the launches by a group of seniors and helped the kids estimate their altitudes.

According to Davenport, Dr. Bergstrahl arrived earlier in the week to give a presentation on the unmanned exploration of Mars, and to help install the telescope camera equipment. The scientist observed as ten students successfully launched the second round of vehicles they designed and built for the class.

"It was a great honor for the children to have a real NASA research scientist attend their launches," Davenport said. "He even helped the students calculate altitudes. I believe he was genuinely impressed."

The new addition to the observatory is a dual sensor self-guiding CCD camera, a high-resolution digital device capable of taking superbly detailed photos of the cosmos and a noteworthy addition to the infrastructure of BSRC’s observatory. Research scientists from around the world have remote access to the telescope and can now make permanent images of the universal bodies they are studying.

The observatory has full remote capabilities. The dome, telescope and camera can be remotely operated from the science classroom at the Ed Brune Charter School. In addition, scientists can remotely access the telescope through the school’s server via a NASA research-sharing consortium.

According to NASA astronomer Brad Perry, who helped set up the instruments and electronics, the observatory is a valuable part of the NASA network available for use by their scientists as well as cooperating astronomers around the world. The priority for use however remains with the students of the Ed Brune and Cailloux Charter Schools.

Davenport emailed other HCYR staff after staying up late with Dr. Bergstrahl on the last night of Jay’s visit, getting the telescope and camera focused: "Had a wonderful evening. The scope and mount worked perfectly. We were able to use the GTO guiding system to successfully locate several objects and the scope slew was perfect. The sighting telrad is now spot on to locate objects. The polar alignment appears to be spot on as well, and the motor system tracked with no discernible wobble or stray! We also captured the first real image of a far object. The imaging and focusing equipment worked flawlessly! It was awesome."