Brutkey

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Their astronomy outreach program is AMAZING (despite only having 1 astro prof). Paid staff run a modern telescope with perfect equipment, people use a virtual queue to get a turn at the big telescope, and the local RASC amateur astronomy chapter set up their own telescopes around the outside for everyone to look at while waiting. There's scientific art scattered around, and great student volunteer opportunities. It's amazing! Anybody have a few million $ for my university to do this too?

Looking up at a very shiny new large telescope white telescope with a black dust shield and a lot of wires and camera equipment on one side, inside a white dome. A telescope dome sitting in a courtyard under the blue sky. There's a powers-of-ten art exhibit on the ground, a spectral lines art project on the concrete benches, and a bunch of star maps on some concrete walls further on. A sundial that incorporates an analemma for more accuracy in timing. The sun is shining through the analemma making a sun-shadow line that perfectly tells the time when projected onto a curved metal piece with timestamps on it.