One of my other interests involves an astronomical observatory. I and many others volunteer at a completely volunteer-based operation. We recently obtained a telescope via Telescopes in Education. The deal is that we have to put the scope to use educating the public, especially K-12 kids. Sounds easy enough. That is what we do with the 18″ Cassegrain we already have. But the catch is that we have bigger plans for this scope than just serving the locals. The idea is to put the scope to use over the internet. Why not make it available to any teacher over the internet who wants to have an astronomy lab session? That is the plan. Fortunately, we have a telescope guidance engineer, an astronomer, an aerospace engineer, as well as several other resourceful folks on the board of directors. I think it’ll work.

We drove to Mt. Wilson Observatory in July of 2006 to retrieve the Cole 24″ telescope, which was taken out of service in 2004 due to loss of funding. We estimated it weighed about one ton. We bolted it down to the trailer and drove it back to the front range of Colorado. We estimate that it’ll be up and running in 12-18 months. We’ll install an upgraded drive system and attach a weather station input to allow for automated weather sensing for the dome controls. The ideal configuration is to have a system that can be operated remotely without having a staff member in the dome. 

Putting together a Telescopes in Education equipment installation requires the overlap of some unusual characters. Gil Clark, the founder of TIE, and Meinte Veldhuis, President of the Little Thompson Observatory (see photo) are exactly the sort of people who are able to pull off such a thing. Gil’s (left) background is in computer science and he spent much of his career at JPL in Pasadena. Meinte (right) is a Dutch-born mechanical engineer and develops satellite payloads for an aerospace company. They are both one-in-a-million sort of guys and have the means and the vision to bring this scientific capability to a younger crowd. I tip my hat to them and the dozens of others who quietly go about this business.