Sustainability Project
Forty years after its dedication, it's time to make changes at the University’s Manastash Ridge Observatory (MRO) that reflect the realities of how we use the facility and respect our impact on natural resources, particularly our water and energy consumption. Our proposal to the Campus Sustainability Fund, Conservation and Sustainability at Manastash Ridge Observatory: Planning For the Next Forty Years, was funded, so now we can upgrade our bathrooms, kitchen, and lighting to conserve water and energy, and build a rainwater catchment system and a solar energy system to reduce our reliance on outside water and power.
Opportunities for Independent Study Projects
While the concept and execution of a solar powered observatory is fairly new ground, solar power and rain catchment are well established technologies. For astronomy students, independent study generally follows an investigative path in traditional research areas, but students from other disciplines or motivated astronomy students should not be dissuaded from using the MRO sustainability project as a research project. Here are several research topics that could be explored:
Dynamics - environmentally scalable power generation
Impacts on the site due to modification from natural state
Impact on telescope seeing with modifications to site
Environmental modeling of MRO
Importance of sub-meter class telescopes in the modern astronomical world
Efficiency of solar power generation due to seasonal solar tracking as compared to daily solar tracking (alt mount, vs alt - alt mount)
Notes
Over 70 light bulbs were replaced with 40 and 60 watt equivalent bulbs (actually 6 and 9.5 watt bulbs, which use only 15% as much energy), as well as dimmers, which can reduce energy use even more. Typically we used lower wattage bulbs in the day room and bedrooms, higher wattage bulbs in the control room, downstairs, and the kitchen.
