Star of the show - Rare telescope becomes focal point for town

BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. -- When Dave and Barbara Fye were house-hunting, they met the agent only at night, far from any street lights.

They were moving, in part, to be near a rare and valuable telescope. They had to be sure the night sky was sufficiently dark.

"She thought we were a little odd," Barbara said.

It might also seem odd, eight years later, to find them standing on a mountain ridge with 8 inches of fresh snow under foot, a vast ebony sky overhead and a "star party" about to begin.

Star parties are to amateur astronomers what tailgates are to football fans, with coffee instead of beer and chocolate chip cookies in place of wings.

And in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, a two-hour drive from Washington, the object of so much affection is a restored, research-grade telescope that took years to repair and erect.

A handful of the people who make up the Morgan County Observatory Foundation has gathered for the culmination of years of quiet fund-raising -- the first public viewing. One by one, they climb a stepladder, peer into the lens of the massive blue scope and gaze at the brilliant rings of Saturn.

"Even 50- or 60-year-old people who have seen countless film or TV documentaries, or news stories about space are amazed," said Kevin Boles, who made putting the telescope back in use his personal mission. "It's really real. The rest is just a movie."

The thrill of the night sky is what has kept Boles and his supporters focused for so long, in the months and years when money for their project was slow to amass.

"You get to show people things in the sky, and when they go 'oooh!' and 'aaah!' that's all you need," Fye said. "And we get a lot of that."

Went into a box

The telescope was built in 1967 for the U.S. Naval Academy and decommissioned in 1994. With the help of Sen. Robert C. Byrd, of West Virginia, it was donated to the Morgan County Board of Education.

Then it went into a box.

It lay unused and largely forgotten for years, moving from school to school, barely escaping a flood in 1996. When Boles finally took possession, he made an elementary school custodial crew happy: They needed room for a new refrigerator.

An electrical engineer who builds computer networks, Boles began calling people he thought might share his vision for an observatory, and in December 1998, convened the first meeting of what became the Morgan County Observatory Foundation.

The first need was a flat, dark, accessible piece of land unlikely to be developed, either low-cost or free. They found that county-owned land next to Greenwood Elementary.

Then came the real work. The 3,000-pound scope was dismantled and moved to the workshop of retired engineer Tom Collins.

Switches were broken, and so was the electrical focus. Only one motor worked, "so if you wanted to look at something you had to wait for the earth to turn -- and it was gone fast," Boles said.

The mirror, a rare piece of Zerodur 16 inches in diameter, was recoated with silver. Zerodur is a gemstone-quality hybrid of glass and quartz that does not change shape and distort images in either cold or heat.

In all, the repairs took about six months and $8,000.

Only two like it

The scope is both Cassegrain and Newtonian, meaning viewers can look in from either the side or the end. One offers a narrow field of sky while the other is a wider view, the difference between looking at a crater or the whole moon.

There are only two telescopes like it, Boles says, one at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., the other in the planetarium at St. Mark's School in Dallas.

The focal point of the scope, or the distance that light travels from the time it hits the mirror to the time it hits the eye, is 18 feet. That makes for a high-resolution image.

As impressive as the telescope is, it's only a tool, says Mark Klosinski, who works with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Solar System Ambassadors Program, a public outreach program to promote space discoveries and exploration.

What's really important is educating people about the sky, says Klosinski, who traveled 90 minutes from Harrisonburg, Va., for the star party.

"This is just a great little group. I like what's happening," he said. "What Kevin's doing with the club is just fantastic. It's a neat little town, and for some reason, it's got a lot of interest in astronomy."

In the summertime, star parties at the observatory draw as many as 100 people from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. They set up on the lawn and show off their telescopes like hot rod owners who brag about their wheels.

Novice astronomer Geoff Huggins, dressed in coveralls and snow boots, has come from Winchester, Va., for advice.

"I've got binoculars, and I love to just stand out in the dark and look at the stars. But that's with the naked eye," he said. "The more you look, the farther you want to take it."

Boles can relate. For now, his star parties are held in a cedar-sided building with a dome-topped, cement block silo. There are lighting sockets, but no fixtures or power in the 20-foot-by-35-foot room, which also needs insulation, drywall and alarms.

Boles has raised more than $100,000 from public and private sources, but he needs at least $5,000 more to finish the interior work. Meanwhile, he's writing grants for a laptop and projector.

He envisions a comprehensive learning center where paid operators give three star shows a week.

"This is my dream -- to have high-level people come here and teach people from Morgan County, and even visitors, about astronomy and space science," Boles said.

He wants a resource room filled with exhibits, photos from the Hubble telescope and Internet connections for logging discoveries, talking to other astronomy clubs or playing games such as Constellation Concentration or Astronomy Monopoly.

"The world's getting dumber, and if we can just get people interested in science, then that's a good thing," Boles said.

He hopes to eventually become the paid observatory manager, in charge of an array of entertainment and educational programming.

"If it just sat here in a cold, empty building, it would be as big a waste as if it were still sitting in boxes," he said.

That's why Boles cares about details such as red lights on dimmer switches, which allow the human eye to adjust comfortably from a lit room to the night sky.

"It's got to be perfect," he said. "Doing it the right way makes this a place that people want to be. It makes the difference between, 'Wow! That was neat and I'm glad I went -- once,' and 'Wow! I can't wait to go back."'

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On the Net

Morgan County Observatory: www.nitesky.org