Observatory opening features Mars viewing
Advertiser Staff
A year after it was built, the gleaming silver dome above Chaminade University of Honolulu will be dedicated in time to tune in on Mars as the red planet reaches its closest point to Earth in 60,000 years.
Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser
The E.L. Wiegand Observatory, with its two tracking telescopes, will debut in private ceremonies tomorrow evening with faculty, regents and invited students for a special viewing of Mars. The observatory will be used for day and evening astronomy classes, as well as a popular online course.
The E.L. Wiegand Observatory above Chaminade University of Honolulu will be dedicated tomorrow night in a ceremony featuring a Mars viewing. The facility will be home to astronomy classes and an online course.
Jim Miller, chairman of the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Division at Chaminade, said students will be able to plan projects, gather data and study stellar and planetary objects.
The little observatory perched on the ridge overlooking Palolo Valley will also be used in conjunction with nearby Sacred Hearts Academy.
Chaminade hopes to coordinate a program with the school to use its Wiegand communications laboratory to enable students to see and talk with American astronauts in the space station as it flies over Hawai'i.
The observatory and laboratory were made possible by a $145,000 grant from Nevada's E.L. Wiegand Foundation.
