New faces and new enthusiasm have sprung up all over MIRA, along with our visionary new projects to promote astronomical education in our community. I especially want to call your attention to several new contributors to our newsletter:

Monica Treadway has for the last year worked very hard, both at the MIRA office helping me weekly in innumerable ways, and with the Amateur Club, organizing activities to entice more amateurs out with more telescopes more often. Find her article about this year's outstanding Friends of MIRA star party at the observatory, for which she organized a concurrent amateur overnight star party and brought her own telescope, on page 4. Also, on page 9, she writes the latest ASCC News.

Arthur Babcock, who recently, fortunately for us, retired to Carmel Valley, has been volunteering weekly over the last few months at the MIRA office, and has become very active in the Amateur Club, has contributed two articles to this issue. Look for his "Looking Up" column on page 5, and his review of MegaStar Sky Atlas software on page 10.

Rod Norden, also an avid member of the Amateur Club and new Friend of MIRA Volunteer, has his inaugural "Astronomy HOTLIST," full of Internet sites not to be missed, on page 5.

At MIRA, we depend on volunteer help to accomplish every public event, every educational project, every scientific research effort. If you would like to help us out, please call 883-1000, or email me: lc@mira.org. We look forward to hearing from you. 

Our goal is to provide students around the Monterey Bay area with access to high quality astronomical optics, because the experience of "being there" to see astronomical objects directly is unmatched for awakening curiosity about our universe.

Total costs for the new telescope and its accessories are estimated at $20,000. Please consider donating to help thousands of local students to learn firsthand about the cosmos. 

Weaver Student Observatory 
Construction Progress Report

A view up the stairs to the future observing deck of MIRA's Weaver Student Observatory (photo by Bruce Weaver).

The stairs are built, the carpentry is finished, the concrete pier for the telescope is poured, the circular parapet on what was once a lowly outbuilding now stands ready to be capped with its dome and start a new life as the peninsula's only dedicated Student Observatory.

Contractors Gerry McConchie and Matt Keator have worked this transformation over the last six weeks. We only await the dome, currently still at donor Wayne Rosing's observatory to allow developing and debugging of the complex guidance software that Rosing is also donating to be used to drive the telescope. Gerry and Matt had to deal with last-minute changes to the plans, and responded with creative solutions that will make for a lot more headroom on the observing deck.

Through careful stewardship, we have managed to finish the basic parts of this project with donated funds, but now we have lack only two things to make the observatory really shine: a door to replace the present ancient Army issue one, and funds for paint, inside and out (we have some volunteers lined up for painting, but we can always use more of those, too).

If you can help us complete the Weaver Student Observatory, please send a check with a note explaining your wishes to the MIRA office. We will be mounting a bronze plaque in the entryway to the observatory to commemorate our donors.

We hope you'll attend our "First Light" celebration when the observatory is finished and ready for the public. Details will follow as the time draws near.

Contractor Gerry McConchie and son-in-law Matt Keator stand in front of their work on the Student Observatory (photo by Laura Cohan).

The MIRA Astronomy Center really wasn't ready for last winter. A leaky roof in the electronics shop, no heat, leaking doors on the west side of the high bay, leaks and condensation in the machine shop, and the 'classroom', which currently serves as our office space for volunteers and astronomers, was cold and poorly lit. This was not too surprising since we moved into the Center during the peak of the rainy season.

Of course, these problems were only the tips of the renovation iceberg. You can't install shop heaters without a gas meter. To get a gas meter, the gas lines must be tested and inspected; but the first job for the plumbers is to get the plumbing ready for the use and install the new water meter. The plumbing can't be finished until the bathroom upgrades for handicap access are completed which can't start until the Building Department..... well, you get the idea.

We're a long way from being finished but the good news is that many of these preliminaries are done. The leaky electronics shop roof was redone by Burkleo Roofing in September. We're waiting on PG&E for gas meters so we can hook up heaters in both main buildings. An awning for the leaking high bay doors has been installed, just in time for the first rain of the season. The classroom office area is much more cheerful now that Gordon Jones has replaced all the dead flourescent lights, and contractor Jeff O'Dell added skylights.

Vince Halter removed all the plywood from the shop windows, making the work areas bright, airy, and cheerful. Under Gary Love's supervision, the shops were rewired by Golden State Electric, bringing in 3-phase power for all our machines. Although a lot of clean-up and rearrangement still needs to be done in the shops, they have already seen use this summer in support of the current telescope upgrades.

One of the major improvements of the summer was securing the siding on the main building. These panels came loose during even modest storms last winter and one even tore itself apart. They have now been repaired and screwed down.

Probably no amount of preparation will be sufficient if the most dire of the El Niño predictions come true but, for a reasonable winter that starts at a reasonable time, we'll be ready.
 

GO BACK | GO ON!