Charles Thomas Bolton at the door steps of David Dunlap Observatory. Photo: National Post.
Charles Thomas Bolton has spent 37 years in David Dunlap Observatory and is credited for being the first man to discover the black hole in Space. The University of Toronto wants him out of the Observatory in 10 days.
In the main article, you can see Bolton sitting at the steps of the David Dunlap Observatory dejectedly. Why he is crying because of the University of Toronto's actions.
Instead of making Bolton as a national treasure, the University of Toronto administration has given him a stern notice to leave the David Dunlap Observatory in 10 days and is planning to close the observatory and demolish it and sell the property.
The university sent Bolton the following e-mail:
"In November, the university voted to close the observatory and sell it to the highest bidder, and redirect the money from the sale back into the school’s astronomy program. Yesterday it confirmed it has a “firm agreement” with a buyer and it’s looking to close the deal by month-end. It did not disclose the buyer or the price."
The university claims the observatory is no longer useful because of light pollution but Bolton and the staff, who operate the telescope disagree.
Bolton was dismayed with this e-mail. He told National Post:
"You probably can't print what I think...The nicest way I could put it is 'disappointed.' "
Bolton said if the University of Toronto administration didn't cut funds the observatory could still be productive. Even with limited resources it can provide more information about the stars, which is ever changing in nature.
Bolton added:
With a modest investment, the university could have returned the observatory to the “showcase” status it had 20 years ago, before “they started running it into the ground by systematically starving us for replacement faculty.”
On Wednesday, the University of Toronto also laid off staff at the observatory, including telescope operators Heide DeBond and Toomas Karmo.
DeBond said if the telescopes are left unattended it will take many hours to bring it back to normalcy.
DeBond told National Post:
“This is a real loss for Canadian science and Canadian history.”
If the University does sell the land and the observatory, the telescope will remain with the anonymous buyer.
Change is necessary sometimes but you can't ignore a legend like Bolton.
2 comments:
Thanks for raising this issue. The Dunlap Observatory is situated on a 190-acre park, a much-needed green space in the heart of Richmond Hill, Ontario.
Although the telescope instrumentation was modernized, the facility as a whole is in near-mint condition -- exactly the way it was when it first opened in 1935. It is full of custom-made furniture, glass plate collections, a massive astronomy library. There are functional machine, wood, optics and electronics workshops. In addition to the 74-inch telescope, there are historical instruments -- from a 1929 hand-made 19-inch telescope to sextants and precision clocks. The place is filled with letters and photographs of the founding astronomers and almost everyone else who worked there afterward. In other words, it is (until a few weeks ago) a working museum of Canadian astronomy. Even with a skeleton staff, the DDO did some great work in recent years, producing dozens of well-cited papers. Please visit:
http://www.rhnaturalists.ca/save-the-observatory/
for more information.
Sad to see the university would ignore such works. Keep fighting for this, hopefully they will come to their senses.
Post a Comment