Dunsink observatory and its possible closure!!!!!!!

Hi everyone.

Bad news I'm afraid. Despite support from others in the professional community and some on the DIAS board, the decision to close Dunsink has been rubberstamped, and the site will be vacated at the end of January. The site will be left unattended, which of course will lead to severe problems with regard to the security of the Observatory and in particular the Grubb telescope. No provision has been made for rehousing the academic staff - the rush to clear us out for whatever the real reason has been the primary driver and focus. An 'expert committee' has been mooted to determine what will be done with the Observatory - no current member of the Dunsink staff has been invited to join it, and indeed, any input from astronomers will be minimal at best. All in all, this is a sad day for professional astronomy and indeed science in Ireland - we're giving up our national observatory. This is a catastrophe, no other way to describe it. The fight will go on of course - all offers of help/suggestions on fighting this would be greatly appreciated.

Clear skies.

Brian

I appologise for te coreseness of my language but in this case it is called for. Could someone please pass on the following to the DIAS board:

You are bunch of stupid, shortsighted, penny pinching bastards.

*fumes*

Sounds about right.

I too am sorry to hear about its closure.

Brian, or anyone else, would you not consider going onto a radio talk show like Gerry Ryan or Joe Duffy? Would you have time to do so? Personally, I would think Brian is the most excellent candidate, as you did some of your post-doctorate work there. For crying out loud, your lecture work you gave at Cosmos almost 3 years ago was based on all that work, some of it in Dunsink!

It is very suspect if no one from the Dunsink community is invited onto the committee to oversee what is to happen. It just stinks of brown envelopes and developers greed to me, wankers the lot of them.

This truly is a crime against age old national heritage and symbolic amenities.




Seanie.

Bloody opportunistic pen-pushing burocrats !!!

How did they justify this?, if the land was completely worthless would they still be doing this?

Is the Observatory going to be re-located elsewhere or is the whole thing to be abolished.

If its going the be left abandoned, then within a matter of months it will be destroyed and they will have no choice but to demolish the place.

Brian get on the radio tomorrow!, this is the only way anything can be done about it, you could not be seen as an outsider to this dilemma, you cannot be seen as someone who is just complaining but someone who is really affected by this.
The international community must be laughing at our stupidity.

What's going to happen to the Grub scope, it must not be allowed to lie flat in some museum, it must be maintained in working order, least it go the way of the Leviathan in Birr nearly 100 years ago, where future generations will end up restoring it.

It was designed as a working scope, it must remain as so.

Interesting. I wonder if the Governing board will continue to allow 'reasonable access' to the observatory as stated in the Act of the Oireachtas No.77 1947 ;

5. Dunsink Observatory
The Governing Board shall give to members of the academic staff and students of Trinity College, Dublin, and University College, Dublin, reasonable access (subject to such restrictions and conditions as the Governing Board may consider necessary with a view to the due discharge of the functions and duties of the School) to the buildings and instruments of Dunsink Observatory and to the library attached thereto for the purposes of study, practical instruction, demonstration and research in astronomy and astrophysics.

[sarcasm]As regards the Grubb refractor. Perhaps DIAS should get in touch with the Science Museum in London and let them know there's another piece of scientific history up for grabs. It would look nice next to the 72" Birr mirror in Kensington.[/sarcasm]