At the center of the UNIVERSE.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

MILLICAN - A sky that had been wall-to-wall blue all day is turning a disappointing gray as evening clouds roll in, threatening to leave everyone on the mountain with a view-obstructed seat for the night's show.

The only thing that kills a star party faster than clouds is clouds and rain, and as a light shower lets fly, the growing band of skywatchers begins to sense a washout.

The Pine Mountain faithful aren't giving up just yet, however.

"It could still get better," says Bend resident Greg Hogue as he pieces together his telescope in the waning daylight. "Don't give up."

For many local astrophiles, the University of Oregon's Pine Mountain Observatory is the center of the stargazing universe, at least on summer weekends. From Memorial Day through Labor Day the lonely outpost welcomes visitors on Friday and Saturday nights, opening its three domes to anyone making the 25-mile drive east from Bend and up eight miles of gravel road.

Inside two of the domes, even regular folks can take a peek through the eyepieces for an astronomer's-eye view of galaxies, nebulae and other species of celestial curiosities - something that would send the pros at almost every other research observatory in the world into fits of apoplexy.

Pine Mountain, however, is an observatory for the people.

Of the three university telescopes, only the largest is reserved exclusively for researchers in the UO astronomy program, although visitors are welcomed into the dome to get a look at it. That one has a 32-inch mirror and is outfitted with a special computer-controlled digital camera cooled to minus 30 degrees to help capture images of extremely dim objects.

The other two, one with a 24-inch mirror and the other 15 inches, offer up views to all comers.

Volunteer supporters such as Hogue run the public program and also bring their own telescopes, sometimes letting visitors look through more than a half-dozen windows on the heavens.

But on this Friday night, people are still feeling a few raindrops and the domes won't be opened if there's any chance of getting the optics wet.

That doesn't keep Hogue and some other enthusiasts from setting up their own telescopes; they've been coming to the mountain for years and have a good hunch that by the time the sky is dark, stars will shine.

It turns out they're right. The clouds don't go away, but they break up enough to open the domes and train the big mirrors on Jupiter, a few galaxies, a globular cluster and a nebula or two.

"This is better than a date," says Crystal Howell, a college student from Bend who made the trip with several friends and got a look through the 24-inch mirror. "It's beautiful."

Among the pines

From the sagebrush flats surrounding the tiny outpost of Millican, Pine Mountain doesn't look much like its namesake. It's not until you've driven a few miles up the gravel road and started up the back side of the mountain that the high desert gives way to forests of big, yellow-boled pines.

The observatory domes are a short distance from the bare peak of the 6,400-foot mountain, to give them some protection from gusty winds that could shake the telescopes and blur their images. Below the domes are a small dormitory for researchers and a small house for the observatory's caretaker. Across the road is a primitive campground.

These days, UO research associate Allan Chambers is the closest thing to an on-site astronomer, serving as what he calls the "telescope driver, chief bottle washer and diaper changer."

He admits that he's also sometimes known as "Cranky Al," thanks to a work schedule involving nightlong stints at the helm of the 32-inch telescope, plenty of daylight chores around the observatory, and not much sleep in between.

But he wouldn't trade it for any 9-to-5 job.

"Astronomy has been my hobby since I was 10 years old, and now I'm being paid to do my hobby," he said during a daytime visit. "I'm one of those people who has a dream job."

That job is primarily to point the telescope in the right place, expose the supersensitive computer chip in the digital camera for the correct amount of time and then collect the data and send it to UO astronomy professor Greg Bothun in Eugene.

It's actually a lot more complicated than that and also involves things like snowmobiling up and down the mountain in winter and minus 20-degree nights in the dome.

Bothun uses the data in a variety of research projects. He used the telescope to locate one of the first suspected black holes, in the constellation Cygnus, and is preparing for a comprehensive survey of the northern sky for a particular type of dim galaxy as part of the search for the universe's so-called "missing mass."

But even the big telescope serves the observatory's public-access mission. Pine Mountain is a hub for science students at high schools all over the Northwest, giving them access to actual research data for school projects and even letting some take control of the mirror from their classrooms to do their own research.

"One of the most important things we're doing right now is we're using the telescope and the facility for public education," Chambers said, highlighting the importance Bothun puts on getting young people involved in science.

"They do real science. They're not reading a science book, they're not taking a test, they're not listening to a lecture," he said. "They're doing science."

Stargazing

Five nights a week, Chambers is in the big dome doing data-based science. But after he leaves on Friday afternoon, the volunteer group Friends of Pine Mountain Observatory takes over to offer their own kind of public science, one that's a little heavier on celestial sightseeing than instruction.

That's what Hogue, fellow volunteer Sig Peterson and others are doing on this particular Friday night.

Peterson is a former astrophysics student who switched majors when he realized he liked fooling with gadgets more than doing research. He's been coming up the mountain for 30 years and probably has spent more time using the 24-inch mirror than anyone.

"Showing things to other people is at least as much fun as finding things for myself," he says.

The last bit of residual daylight doesn't disappear from the sky until 11 p.m., and by then the clouds have done a Red Sea act and parted enough to let the light from the Milky Way pour through. About 50 people, from preschoolers to retirees, are milling about in the dim illumination of a few red-tinted lights, which are easier on night-adapted eyes.

Volunteers line up the night's wonders one by one: the Whirlpool Galaxy, the Ring Nebula, a globular cluster in the constellation Hercules, a binary star system. Each time the telescopes swing around to a new object, a line of waiting observers forms, eager for the next view.

"That's Mizar, a bright, binary star in the handle of the Big Dipper," Hogue tells a young boy, explaining that almost half the stars in the sky are actually groups of two or more suns caught in each other's gravitational grip. "Basically every other star you see is a binary star; so if you lived there you'd have two suns."

Those little lessons that come with each look-see make visits to Pine Mountain more than just a starsearching trip. Many parents bring their children to the observatory to mix a little summer school in with their vacations.

"So many kids sit around and watch a video on a Friday night," says Jason Woodruff, who came with his wife and daughter and his sister and her two children. "So I thought we'd do something different."

Rey Owen of Redmond brought his four children and one of their friends. He wants their weekend vacations to have some education slipped in with the entertainment.

"They get to take home something other than a rock or a piece of paper: knowledge," he says. "They're getting something they'll remember for the rest of their lives."

Hogue has pointed his 18 1/2 -inch telescope at the Whirlpool Galaxy and is showing it to one of Owen's boys. The galaxy is 37 million light years away and appears as a glittering, thumbnail-sized smudge in the telescope's viewfinder.

"The light from those stars has been traveling for 37 million years, and the first thing it's run into is the back of your eyes," he says.

As the night gets older, the clouds are still barging across parts of the sky but most of it is clear. For awhile, the line of people waiting for a look through the 24-inch mirror goes all the way down the stairs that wind around the squat, cylindrical building and out into the night. Inside, stars shine like glitter through the rectangular slit in the dome.

At the base of the telescope, people stand on the second step of a small ladder to reach the eyepiece while one of the volunteer guides tells one youngster about the object he's seeing, the Ring Nebula.

"See that smoke ring? That's a planetary nebula. That's a dying star that's expanding out into space," he says.

Without taking his eye from the viewer, the boy asks, "How come it's dying?"

"Because it's burned out its fire," comes the reply.

The same conversations go on at other telescopes, repeated for each new group. But slowly the night's visitors drift down the hill toward their cars or across the road to the primitive campground, where a few people are still up.

Their voices carry on the still mountain air, and though the words aren't clear it's hard to believe they aren't sitting at a picnic table, bathed in the dim wash of million-year-old starlight, still awed by the celestial sights that came to them through the mirror of a telescope.

PINE MOUNTAIN OBSERVATORY

Where: Take Highway 20 east from Bend about 26 miles, then turn right on the marked gravel road just past the tiny outpost of Millican. Drive eight miles up the gravel road to the observatory.

What: Stargazing through the observatory's 24- and 15-inch telescopes, plus those brought by amateur astronomers who serve as tour guides.

When: Friday and Saturday nights beginning at nightfall. The season runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Cost: The program is free but a $3 donation per person is encouraged.

For more information: The Pine Mountain Observatory Internet site has information about the public programs and educational information for teachers interested in using astronomy in their science classes. Go to pmo-sun.uoregon.edu/~pmo/. To schedule group tours, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

The building housing the 24-inch telescope at the Pine Mountain Observatory draws a line of people waiting to get a view of stars, galaxies, planets and other offerings of the night sky. The observatory is about 33 miles southeast of Bend. Kevin Clark / The Register-Guard The Pine Mountain Observatory near Bend draws crowds on summer weekends who get a chance to gaze through telescopes at passing stars and other celestial bodies. Here, an exposure of about half an hour shows the path of the stars as the Earth turns. Travis Owen, 11, of Redmond signs the visitors list at the observatory. Red light is used so it won't bother adjacent stargazers. Owen and his family took advantage of a public viewing on a recent night.