Slashdot Mirror
Chance To Snap Up Your Own Observatory
Hugh Pickens writes "Like to own your own five-story observatory equipped with a 12" Meade Schmidt Cassegrain catadioptric telescope and a 20-inch Shafer-Maksutov telescope — the second-largest of its kind in the world? Well, there's one for sale at Marina Towers in Swansea, at an observatory that could be Wales' largest telescope. The Swansea Astronomical Society moved out two years ago, blaming increased rent and other costs. So the city council has asked interested parties to submit their proposals and financial offers by the end of March. Brian Spinks, the chair of the society, says the extra rent and running costs meant the society's members would have had to find around £40,000 over the next 10 years. 'The members can no longer be expected to finance such a public presence from their annual subscription. If we had to find £40,000 over the next 10 years it would kill the society.' The observatory was built in 1988 and includes a domed roof, an access tower that houses a spiral staircase, a stained-glass roof by artist David Pearl and panels of carved poetry by Nigel Jenkins. 'We'd like to see a mixed-use development that incorporates features of the existing observatory building,' says Coun Gareth Sullivan, Swansea council's cabinet member for regeneration. 'Bringing the observatory back into use would add even more vitality to the promenade.'"
That's a car, financed over 10 years instead of 5. Must be a pretty small society.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Replying to my own post... 80 members, so yeah, pretty small but only 500 funny currency symbols each over ten years each. That's just 50 per year. My guess is that their members don't want that kind of dues increase. I'd think they could have held birthday parties or some such and raised that money, though.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
4000£ "extra" a year may not sound like much, but for many small organizations it's a huge change in their budget. Sure, top earners may lose that kind of change in their sofa, but if your group is mostly average working people that money's going to be hard to come by. The economy of the past 3-4 years has not exactly been great for small organizations which rely on fundraisers and donations.
Heck, my town (of 40,000) in the US doesn't have a functioning dramatic theater that's available for community productions. In fact, there isn't one in the surrounding three towns either (total pop of 100,000+). To get a basic one up and running in one f our old warehouses, we figured it could be done - with lots of volunteer labor - for as little as $600,000. Of the 3-4 small dramatic companies in the towns mentioned, that's somewhere around 6x our combined annual operating budgets, and about 80x our annual surplus when we all have successful productions. Unless you've got a very wide appeal, or backing of a successful regional or national corporation that wants some exposure, niche endeavors are tough to keep funded.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
My impression from perusing Wikipedia is that this Shafer-Maksutov telescope is the second largest mainly because it's just not that good a design for professional work. I'm not an astronomer, though, by any means.
Any astronomers out there who could chime in on this?
It might be a big delta but it's not a lot of money. If you can't come up with 4000 pounds a year to support something with as much apparent value then apparently it's not actually worth maintaining.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The site they're moving to -- the Gower -- has much darker skies than the glare of Swansea. So, yeah -- they've decided, probably for good reason, that it's not worth paying that much extra for light polluted skies, when they could maintain their costs and increase the quality of their experience.
I think they were just looking for an excuse to disband and/or find a new hobby
The society didn't disband. they just moved out - 2 years ago. Check their webiste.
I'd guess that they simply found a better location. I wouldn't be surprised if Swansea promenade suffered a lot of bad light pollution and their website gives the impression that they've got a better location, elsewhere. Maybe even, for less money.
Although it might sound nice for Swansea council to say "yes, we built an observatory on the promenade", it doesn't sound like it' was particularly successful if it's been 2 years since the previous users left and it's still empty. You have to wonder whether it was built with utility in mind (carvings? stained glass?) for astronomy, or simply as a vanity project for the council to spend public money on.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
That goes both ways. This sounds like a fantastic facility that is often made open to the public, that is completely maintained by the members, and which they pay to use. The community benefits enormously, and from the council's comments, they know it.
But because they've got some greedy assholes in charge now, they've decided to increase the rent by a factor of 20x over 10 years. And what determines the fair market value? I'm certain the improvements made over the years, paid for by the members, are a big part of it.
The best thing would for the council to realize the benefit they gain from having a fantastic learning resource run for them for free, and subsidizing the rent - maybe an increase is fair, but not that much - is a win/win for everyone.
Fucking rich urban Americans and South-East Englanders. In Wales the median income, if you actually include everyone rather than massaging the figures only to include those who have been lucky enough to find full-time employment, is tiny. 4000 GBP/year is, in fact, not much more than what the state considers (via means-tested allowances) what you need to live on excluding rent costs.