KIDS SHOOTING FOR THE STARS; REAL RESEARCH WORK WITH AUSSIE TELESCOPE PROPOSED IN PALMDALE SCHOOLS.Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer Youngsters could operate an Australian observatory telescope via computer - doing what the school district's planetarium planetarium, optical device used to project a representation of the heavens onto a domed ceiling; the term also designates the building that houses such a device. A modern planetarium consists of as many as 150 motor-driven projectors mounted on an axis. director describes as true astronomical work - under a proposal now before the board. The Palmdale School District The Palmdale School District is a school district that serves a major part of the city of Palmdale, California (USA). The Palmdale School District was first formed in 1888. Approximately 28,000 students are enrolled in the Palmdale School District. would pay $3,000 a year to lease a telescope at the Siding Springs Observatory in Coonabarabran, Australia, also making it available for use by other school districts and by Antelope Valley College Antelope Valley College is a comprehensive community college located in Lancaster, California, USA. It is operated by the Antelope Valley Community College District, with a primary service area of 1,945 square miles covering portions of Los Angeles and Kern counties. , officials said. ``You can do it straight from the classroom as long as you schedule the time and have the training to do it,'' said Superintendent Nancy Smith. There also would be a one-time cost of $50,000 to outfit the telescope with the special equipment to make it operable operable /op·er·a·ble/ (op´er-ah-b'l) subject to being operated upon with a reasonable degree of safety; appropriate for surgical removal. op·er·a·ble adj. by computer, officials said. The Palmdale board discussed the proposal last week after hearing a presentation from John Shobbrook, who worked at the Siding Spring Observatory Siding Spring Observatory, astronomical observatory located on Siding Spring Mountain, near Coonabarabran, at an altitude of nearly 4,000 ft (1,220 m) in the Warrumbungle Mts. of New South Wales, Australia. It began as a field station for Mt. before coming to Palmdale last year to oversee the $1.2 million planetarium. The board last week accepted donations of $1,000 each from three firms to pay a $3,000 fee to put a ``hold'' on telescope time while the proposal is developed. The donations came from the law firm O'Melveny & Myers and consulting and financial firms Caldwell, Flores Flores, town, Guatemala Flores (flōrəs), town (1990 est. pop. 2,200), capital of Petén department, N Guatemala. Flores was built on an island in the southern part of Lake Petén Itzá and on the site of the , Winters and Paine Webber Paine Webber and Company was an American stock brokerage firm that was acquired by the Swiss bank UBS AG in 2000. The company was founded in 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts, by William Alfred Paine and Wallace G. Webber. . All do business with the district. Shobbrook said there are many scientific research projects for which professional astronomers do not have the time to do the required continuous observations. An example would be searching for optical counterparts for gamma ray bursts. ``Students could do the work and pass the data back to research scientists,'' Shobbrook said. Students also could examine lunar craters by taking high-magnification photographs of them. Using geometry, the depth of lunar craters could be determined by measuring the length of the rims' shadows and knowing the angle of the sun. ``A lot of math can be taught. It's a pretty exciting way to do it,'' Shobbrook said. Students also could record the brightness of variable stars with a device called the photometer Photometer An instrument used for making measurements of light, or electromagnetic radiation, in the visible range. In general, photometers may be divided into two classifications: laboratory photometers, which are usually fixed in position and yield results , and they could measure the rotational period of the sun by observing and photographing sun spots (Astron.) dark spots that appear on the sun's disk, consisting commonly of a black central portion with a surrounding border of lighter shade, and usually seen only by the telescope, but sometimes by the naked eye. . The advantage of having a telescope in Australia is that children can use it during school hours. If students want to use the telescope at Mount Wilson, they have to come back to the classroom at night, Shobbrook said. Trustees suggested the idea be brought before the superintendents of other school districts, which could share the cost of the annual lease, Smith said. Smith said she will bring the idea up at a valley superintendents' meeting. Smith said Palmdale businessman Mike Dispenza has volunteered to lead an effort to raise funds for school districts to participate. |
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