- 4511 Huntzinger Road, Vantage, WA 98950
- A Hipparcos Census of the Nearby OB Associations (iopscience.iop.org)
A comprehensive census of the stellar content of the OB associations within 1 kpc from the Sun is presented, based on Hipparcos positions, proper motions, and parallaxes. It is a key part of a long-term project to study the formation, structure, and evolution of nearby young stellar groups and related star-forming regions. OB associations are unbound “moving groups,” which can be detected kinematically because of their small internal velocity dispersion. The nearby associations have a large extent on the sky, which traditionally has limited astrometric membership determination to bright stars (V ≲ 6 mag), with spectral types earlier than ∼B5. The Hipparcos measurements allow a major improvement in this situation.
- Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park (Wikipedia)
Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park/Wanapum Recreational Area is a geologic preserve and public recreation area covering 7,124-acre (2,883 ha) on the western shoreline of the Columbia River’s Wanapum Reservoir at Vantage, Washington. Petrified wood was discovered in the region in the early 1930s, which led to creation of the state park as a national historic preserve. Over 50 species are found petrified at the site, including ginkgo, sweetgum, redwood, Douglas-fir, walnut, spruce, elm, maple, horse chestnut, cottonwood, magnolia, madrone, sassafras, yew, and witch hazel.