[getsmart-l] David Dunlap Observatory - can it be saved?

[Gloria Boxen]

Here's Professor Pekka Sinervo's email and a Star article on the sale.  Dr. Tom Bolton, the astronomer at the Dunlap Observatory has explained that the telescope is still very useful.  One major advantage it has over remote telescopes is the ability to conduct ongoing observations and see changes and fluctuations in a continuous manner.   

Scientists book a few days a year to conduct their studies at the  high demand locations in Chile and Hawaii.  This short period of observation leads to different types of study.

pekka.sinervo at utoronto.ca

Administration: 
http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/home.htm
http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/bac/gc.htm-  It is comprised of 50 members

Organizational Chart
http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/Assets/Information+Manual/2.01.02.pdf
Maybe someone has the time to obtain contact information on the executive members.

 http://www.towards2030.utoronto.ca/files/towards-2030-sec5.pdf

U of T observatory likely to be sold
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    document.write('Email story'); 


                                    
                     Sep 11, 2007 08:25 AM
                     
                          
            
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                   Louise Brown                 
                                                                                            Education Reporter
                                                                                                                                                                                       Blinded by the light of the world that surrounds it, Canada’s largest optical telescope is headed for the auction block. The 70-year-old David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill — once Canada’s leading eye on the sky where scientists first discovered black holes — has outlived its stargazing status and will likely be sold to the highest bidder, say officials at the University of Toronto, which owns the 200-acre property.
 The lights of the city are simply too bright to let astronomers see clearly enough into space for modern research, explained Arts and Science dean Pekka Sinervo. U of T space buffs now do that in the remote mountains of Hawaii and Chile, high above much of the atmosphere and far from the glare of urban life.
 “To make the sort of measurements that will push science forward, you have to look at the stars for quite a while, and the reality is the lights of Toronto create a glow that comes back down into the telescope and affects how much you can really see,” said Sinervo. And at a cost of $800,000 a year to run the observatory, it doesn’t make sense to keep it.
 Donated to the university in 1935 by the widow of mining mogul David Dunlap, an astronomy buff, the telescope was built on farmland that seemed far from the bustle of Toronto. But as urban sprawl wrapped around its forested setting in the 1980s, Sinervo said astronomers began to leave the Dunlap observatory for other countries. They have gone to an extinct volcano high in Mauna Kea in Hawaii, where Canada owns 40 per cent of an observatory, and to the high desert of Atacama in Chile, where Canada owns 15 per cent of a telescope. 
 “The drive has been to locate telescopes higher and higher in altitude, where they are undisturbed by clouds and atmosphere,” said Sinervo — not smack in the midst of stores and subdivisions. 
 To honour its namesake, university officials have pledged to steer the proceeds of any sale to a new Dunlap Institute on the downtown campus that would focus on the design of astronomical instruments, something not hampered by the glare of the city skyline.
 The university’s governing council will vote Oct. 30 on whether to sell the observatory.


Gloria Boxen <gboxen at rogers.com> wrote: http://www.yorkregion.com/article/48334

                  Sep 12, 2007 11:01 PM                 By:  Serena Willoughby
                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             ...
The University of Toronto confirmed this week it is moving to have the observatory and the 200 acres surrounding it declared surplus and sold off....

“It hasn’t been making discoveries for a long time. The cost of operating it can’t be justified by the amount of science being done there,” U of T’s dean of arts and science Pekka Sinervo said.

The university spends up to $800,000 annually to maintain the facility.

Funds from the sale will be used to create a new Dunlap Institute for astronomy and astrophysics at U of T’s St. George campus.

Richmond Hill residents are endeared to the site not just for its scientific contributions, but for its combination of woodlands, open space and unique buildings.

It has become a prime destination for naturalists because of wildlife such as deer and red-tailed hawks.

The property also houses a heritage  house that once belonged to the Marsh family, who participated in the 1837 Upper Canada rebellion....



 
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