‘Very High Hopes’ About Major Telescope

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30568, 10 October 1964, Page 24

‘Very High Hopes’ About Major Telescope

“Very high hopes” of a major astronomical telescope being sited in New Zealand are held by those associated with the Mount John University Observatory, the professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania (Professor F. B. Wood) said in Christchurch yesterday. “We have very high hopes of this, but aren’t in a position yet to make a legal commitment” Professor Wood said.

The Immediate objective, said Professor Wood, was to finance the installation and housing of an 18in refracting telescope which was already in store in New Zealand, and to procure and house a 39in reflecting telescope. An organisation had been approached for a grant of £85,000 for these projects. The observatory is a joint venture of the universities of Pennsylvania and Canterbury. Professor Wood has come to New Zealand for 10 months to establish a programme of observation of variable stars which graduate students, and perhaps faculty members, from his department will be able to continue in the years to come. He is to make arrangements for the programme In conjunction with the observer in charge of the observatory, Mr F. M. Bateson, who arrived back at Tekapo yesterday from an overseas trip. Students and faculty members of the University of Canterbury would b? welcome at Tekapo under the same conditions as applied to persons

from his own university, said Professor Wood.

Equipment which Professor Wood will need to start the variable-star programme is being constructed by the industrial development department of the University of Canterbury.

Singer Dead.—Maude Fay Symington, the operatic toast of pre-World War I Europe, died in her sleep in her native San Francisco today. She was 86.—San Francisco, Oct 7.