Submission + - Friends rally to stop closure of historic solar observatory (cloudcroftreader.com)
D2inAlamo writes: NSF plans to plow under Sunspot Solar Observatory, at Sacramento Peak, NM, because of a mercury leak in the Dunn Solar Telescope. But, Friends of Sunspot are pushing back.
“Just because the telescope isn’t operational doesn’t mean the rest of the site’s still not viable,” Heidi Sanchez, president of the Sunspot Community Center, said in an article in the Cloudcroft Reader. “To spend all that money to demolish everything – our tax dollars could be used better than that.” Friends of Sunspot contend that the Dunn, built in 1969, could become a hands-on museum once the mercury is removed and the rest of the site renovated to provide an astronomy-oriented RV park and solar physics school.
Sunspot was started by the U.S. Air Force in 1947 as one of the first space weather forecasting stations. It quickly grew to support coronagraphic and patrol telescopes, and the Dunn, built in 1969. Although superseded by larger telescopes, even the NSF once acknowledged that the Dunn would be ideal for training future scientists who cannot access those facilities.
“Just because the telescope isn’t operational doesn’t mean the rest of the site’s still not viable,” Heidi Sanchez, president of the Sunspot Community Center, said in an article in the Cloudcroft Reader. “To spend all that money to demolish everything – our tax dollars could be used better than that.” Friends of Sunspot contend that the Dunn, built in 1969, could become a hands-on museum once the mercury is removed and the rest of the site renovated to provide an astronomy-oriented RV park and solar physics school.
Sunspot was started by the U.S. Air Force in 1947 as one of the first space weather forecasting stations. It quickly grew to support coronagraphic and patrol telescopes, and the Dunn, built in 1969. Although superseded by larger telescopes, even the NSF once acknowledged that the Dunn would be ideal for training future scientists who cannot access those facilities.
