Current Use
Currently, regular observing programs are held almost every Friday and Saturday night throughout the year. Programs are held on other evenings and during the day by special appointment. A monthly lecture series detailing various current topics in astronomy is ongoing. Occasional special events (like telescope fairs, celebrity guest lecturers, and viewings of unusual astronomical events) are also sponsored and organized by Perkins. (Thousands of people visited the observatory to see comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. Each time a notable solar eclipse is visible from Central Ohio, several thousand pairs of eclipse glasses are distributed and educational school programs scheduled. E. C. Krupp, Director of Griffith Observatory and John Dobson, inventor of the Dobsonian telescope, have both visited and lectured at Ohio Wesleyan thanks to Perkins sponsorship.)
Perkins Observatory is now the most visible and most reliable source of information related to astronomy and space exploration in central Ohio. Television stations, newspapers, other local science museums, and members of the general public rely on Professor Burns and his staff to answer questions, provide perspective, make media appearances and dispel astronomical misconceptions.
Read more about this topic: Perkins Observatory
Famous quotes containing the word current:
“Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening thoughts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What in fact have I achieved, however much it may seem? Bits and pieces ... trivialities. But here they won’t tolerate anything else, or anything more. If I wanted to take one step in advance of the current views and opinions of the day, that would put paid to any power I have. Do you know what we are ... those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society’s tools, neither more nor less.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)