Friends of the Zeiss
P.O. Box 1041
Pittsburgh, PA 15230-1041 U.S.A.
Telephone: 412-561-7876
E-Mail: < fotz @planetarium.cc >
Web Site: < http://www.friendsofthezeiss.org >
Blog: < http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com
>
2016 October 4
NEWS
RELEASE
For Release: EMBARGOED UNTIL 2:00 p.m. (EDT), Tuesday, 2016
October 4
For more information -- Glenn A. Walsh ---
E-Mail
< gawalsh@planetarium.cc >
Telephone 412-561-7876
PROPOSED SCIENCE CENTER
ADDITION OMITS HISTORIC TELESCOPE
Pittsburgh, Oct. 4 – A proposed addition to Pittsburgh’s Carnegie
Science Center does not include re-installation of a historic telescope, as
promised to the City of Pittsburgh in 2002. According to a 2002 legal
Memorandum of Understanding between the City and the Science Center, the
Science Center had agreed to include re-installation of the city-owned
telescope with the construction of an addition to the The Carnegie Science
Center.
The
telescope is a rather unique 10-inch Siderostat-Type Refractor Telescope, which
was installed in Pittsburgh’s original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of
Popular Science in 1941. The 75th anniversary of this telescope will
be on November 19th. This type of specialized telescope is rather rare.
Upon re-installation of this telescope, it would be the largest Siderostat-Type
Telescope in the world, as two larger such telescopes have both been
dismantled.
The
Carnegie Science Center dismantled and placed in storage this telescope, from
the Buhl Planetarium building in 2002, to make-way for expansion of The
Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. At that time, a legal Memorandum of Understanding
was enacted, between the City and the Science Center, indicating that the Science
Center would include the telescope in an expansion of the Science Center
building. However, the height, location, and configuration of the proposed
Science Center expansion makes installation of any telescope not feasible.
This
afternoon, Friends of the Zeiss Project Director Glenn A. Walsh, who served as
Astronomical Observatory Coordinator at the original Buhl Planetarium (a.k.a.
Buhl Science Center) from 1986 to 1991, will ask the Pittsburgh City Planning
Commission, during the Public Hearing on the proposed Science Center expansion
(at 2:00 p.m. EDT in the first floor Hearing Room of the John P. Robin Civic
Building, 200 Ross Street at Second Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh), to clarify
this issue and determine how the Science Center will keep its commitment to the
City and when city residents will, again, be able to use this historic
telescope.
-30-
Click Here for a photograph and more information on Buhl
Planetarium’s historic 10-inch Siderostat-Type Refractor Telescope.