I'd have to disagree that robotic scopes are "the future" of public outreach. Hopefully, more efficient outdoor lighting, spurred-on by rising energy costs, will one day reverse the light pollution trend. And if not, then eventually no corner on earth will be remote enough anyway. Making more sense from an outreach standpoint, as well as light-pollution considerations, is a mobile observatory. You can take it to the masses, -or- take it to the dark sky. I'll volunteer my driveway to store it. ;) Be that as it may, a robotic scope is indeed a possibilty for a future effort- but not the near future. The current incarnation of SPOC is brand-new and it's capabilities haven't been even lightly explored. Tooele county seems to have a handle on light-pollution (perhaps BECAUSE of SPOC) so maybe the skies will remain OK for a while, at least to the west. Kurt's 100% right that properly funding SPOC should be the #1 priority. A new project need not be started right away. A few years isn't an unreasonable wait for the next big initiative, especially if a couple of other local institutions are going to build a robotic facility anyway. --- Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm in principle for the club adopting a robotic scope as a new project - whether as a SLAS alone project or in cooperation with Clark, the UofU or, I believe, USU was mentioned at the meeting.
Considering increasing light pollution and rising gas prices, internet access to robotic scopes is the future of public outreach - particularly for outreach to Utah school children.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com