MIRA’s first museum show in nearly 30 years. Attended by over 12,000 visitors and featuring five jammed public lectures, it received critical acclaim not only in the press but by the museum staff.

The completion of the multi-year telescope renovation. The instrumentation modernization is almost complete. The telescope operates better than ever.

The completion of the detailed plans for the construction of the internal floors for the Richard W. Hamming Astronomy Center.

The completion of a multi-year project to develop a new, highly accurate technique to classify double stars.

Even though the final instrumentation is not complete on the 36-inch telescope, impatient MIRA astronomers have been pressing the upgraded telescope into service with a program to catalog the gravitational lenses observable from Chews Ridge and a program to study the variability of stars in a newly discovered region of star formation near the famous Horsehead Nebula.

We’ve had some unpleasant surprises as well, including a major, and very expensive, overhaul of the 16-year-old power system at the Oliver Observing Station.

Through the MIRA Web pages, the successful museum show, and our public talks, star parties, and observatory tours, MIRA has brought Central Coast astronomy to more people this year than in all the previous 28 years.

This significant expansion of our education and research capabilities will bear fruit for many years but the costs in resources were very high this year. The MIRA staff is a little overworked but elated with the results.

To continue this great start, we need your help. We hope you will include MIRA in your end-of-year giving. If you have any special interests, please contact our Administrator, Esther Trosow, or me. We’ll be glad to help with any special gift needs.