Hello, and mind the step.
My name is Ruth Calloway. For thirty-one years I ran the projector at the Kettle Valley Planetarium — a Zeiss Model VI, the last of her line, whom I called Aurora II because the first one rusted. I retired in the spring, and it turns out the sky does not stop being interesting just because nobody is paying you to look at it.
This site is where I keep the things that don't fit in a shoebox: my observation diary, the constellation lore people have told me over the years (some of it almost certainly invented by the tellers, which I consider a feature), and a little machine I built so visitors can draw their own constellations and receive — with the appropriate scientific caveats, none — the lore they were always meant to have.
If you knew Aurora II, or the planetarium, or me — the sky diary is the liveliest part of this site. If you didn't, the lore wall requires no prior knowledge, only a willingness to believe that a farmer's coat deserves a place in the sky. Everything on these pages happened to someone.