Karen Halliday's love of astronomy began under the startlingly bright Himalayan night skies as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal
Volunteers share cosmos with public
A core group steps in when Clackamas Community College's observatory loses its director to budget cuts
Thursday, July 29, 2004
TOM QUINN
OREGON CITY -- Talk with Karen Halliday about constellations in the night sky and the word "beautiful" is sure to come up again and again.
"Right now, there's a beautiful double star at the head of the swan in Cygnus; one is a pale blue, the other a kind of a shiny gold," she said.
"Then there's the Lagoon Nebulae in Sagittarius -- that's a star-forming nebulae, and you can see the gas cloud with hot, bright new stars. It's a beautiful, beautiful object."
Halliday doesn't have some kind of superhuman vision. Instead, she's the volunteer coordinator at the Haggart Astronomical Observatory at Clackamas Community College's John Inskeep Environmental Learning Center.
These days, a better title for Halliday might be keeper of the light bucket, as the observatory's reflector telescope is sometimes called. About a year ago, the college eliminated the director's position at the learning center. That left the center unstaffed and its future -- and that of the observatory -- in limbo.
Along with a core group of about 10 active volunteers, Halliday, who's a librarian at the college during the day, is continuing to open the observatory for public use every clear Saturday night.
Doors open about sunset -- now a little before 9 p.m. -- and programs begin about a half-hour later. A $3 donation is suggested.
"Karen is the mainstay," said Bernie Miller, a 53-year Hillsboro resident who's been volunteering at Haggart along with his son Don for about three years. "She has picked up and continued to advance the program. It won't hold together if you don't have someone who can makes decisions."
Haggart's main attraction is a 24-inch Dobsonian reflector telescope, sometimes called a light bucket for its ability to capture and magnify the photons emitted by distant planets, stars and galaxies. The telescope sits atop a 45-foot high platform surrounded by an aluminum dome.
Haggart's so-called tower telescopes also include a 13-inch Dobsonian reflector. Lately, volunteers have been setting up telescopes in the nearby parking lot to offer even more viewing options.
Summer nights, clear skies
Halliday, whose love of astronomy began under the startlingly bright Himalayan night skies as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, said viewing sessions start with a short classroom orientation.
On a given evening, viewers can count on seeing four or five celestial objects in the tower telescopes -- everything from deep space objects such as globular clusters to planets and the often overlooked moon.
Halliday said summer months don't necessary offer the best skies for viewing, but they do offer the best chances for clear skies. She also cautioned people from showing up with unreasonable expectations of what they may see in a telescope.
"If you want cool pictures, go look at the Hubble" she said. "But I think there is an excitement, a charm, to seeing these things with your own eye. That's why we're a great place for beginners."
Halliday said volunteers at Haggart are a varied lot. They include retirees and teenagers such as Jessica Stringham, an eighth-grader at Ogden Middle School in Oregon City. An avid searcher for deep space objects, she said she enjoys reading books about space objects "and then seeing if you can actually see them through the telescope."
What seems to unite all Haggart volunteers is a love of the wonders of the cosmos, and a desire to share that love with others.
