California Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics
CalAstro News

CalAstro Members Tour NASA Facilities

During the week of March 19th through the 25th of 2006,  several CalAstro members, along with their families toured NASA facilities and Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.  Walter Reil (CalAstro member and NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador (SSA)) from Atascadero, CA, with his wife Julie and daughter Robin decided to  make the most of Robin's "Spring Break" from Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo, where she is a Physics Major.  Robin plans to "intern" with NASA following her graduation, so they decided to check out several of the NASA facilities.  On Monday, March 20th, they were given a personal tour of the facilities at Goldstone Tracking Station of the Deep Space Network (DSN) by Steve Smith, the Senior Controller at Goldstone who is also another NASA/JPL SSA.

On Wednesday, March 22nd, Walter, Julie and Robin were to meet with Philip Evans (CalAstro member and NASA/JPL SSA from the Antelope Valley), his wife Sue, Mark Rooney (CalAstro Member and NASA/JPL SSA from Burbank) and his wife Lisa.  They were to be given a private tour of the facilities at the Mount Wilson Observatory (Mt. Wilson is currently closed for the Winter season).  However, it had snowed the previous night and the roads to Mt. Wilson were all closed.  The trip had to be cancelled and will be rescheduled for a later date.  Walter, Julie and Robin made the best of the cancelation and drove down to Los Angeles for the day, where they toured the Museum of Science and Industry.

On Thursday, March 23rd, Walter Julie, Robin, Philip and Sue went to NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, were met by Lisa Mattox (Public Outreach Specialist) and were given a personal tour of the NASA facilities.  Following the tour the group ate lunch at the Base Exchange Food Court, and then proceeded to the Edwards Air Force Base Flight Research Center Air Museum for a tour of the museum.  Flollowing the days activities, the group went to Phil and Sue's home in Palmdale, CA for a Bar-B-Que.  See pictures of some of the weeks activities...


CalAstro Partners with BackyardAstronomy.org

In a move beneficial to both organizations, CalAstro and BackYardAstronomy.org have agreed to form a partnership that uniquely combines the skills and resources of both organizations. For some time, CalAstro had been looking for ways to better serve local communities with educational out-reach programs and public awareness events. CalAstro was also working to build a curriculum of "high school level" astronomy and physics courses to be made available to "Home Schoolers" for either primary or extra high school credit.

While BackYardAstronomy.org is always looking for new ways to introduce astronomy to the general public, they were also looking for ways to introduce interested amateur astronomers to the area of scientific research. With the unique assets of both organizations combined, all of these goals are within reach.

CalAstro Helps to Secure Equipment for Research & Education

Several times during the last decade, CalAstro has been instrumental in helping to secure sizable donations of computer equipment from a major Silicon Valley manufacturer to the University of California Observatories (UCO) and to Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. One of these donations consisted of a quantity of new notebook and desktop computers, while another large donation consisted of a number of multi-processor UNIX Servers coming off of the "trade-show" circuit.

Over a period of several years, CalAstro has also been able to secure donations of computer equipment of various types (PC's, Macintosh's, Sun Sparcstations, etc.) to several colleges in the greater Los Angeles area.  These went to technical training centers so that they could be used directly for 'hands-on' education.

CalAstro was also able to secure a large donation of Compaq Proliant servers from a Fortune 500 company.  A number of these went to Griffith Observatory, the Mount Wilson Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations, BackYardAstronomy.org, several California charitable organizations, and one was retained by CalAstro for dedicated processing on the Einstein Search for Pulsars project and the SETI-At-Home project.

CalAstro has promised to continue in its pursuit to help secure equipment donations to California's observatories and colleges.



AstronomyDaily.com Link Has Been Removed!

AstronomyDaily.com has changed the format of their service to a "Paid Subscription Service".  CalAstro has been an affiliate and supporter of their site since it was first placed on the web.    However, with their move to a 'paid service', it goes against our strong belief that the flow of information (especially in the sciences) should be free.  Therefore, the link to their site and our endorsement of their service has been removed.  We can only hope that someday they will become a 'free' service again.

Return to the Previous Page…