The next ORION program will take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 15, at Roane State Community College in Oak Ridge’s City Room (Room A-111) in the McNally-Coffey building. The title of the program is “Ridgeview Observatory: Construction, Operation and Projects” by Fred Schumacher.
The program is free and open to the public. A live Zoom session will also be available.
“Designing, building and using a personal observatory can range from a simple roll-off roof or roll-off building to an exotic digitally controlled remote facility that you only need to instruct as to what you might want to image or measure. In this presentation I will share the construction and use of the Ridgeview Observatory to meet my amateur astronomy interests,” Schumacher stated.
He has worked on Opto-Mechanical Systems for most of his career beginning with Hi-Speed Camera and Optical Systems deployed to the Nevada Test Site and the first Multi-Channel Fiber Optic Spectrograph installed on the 40-inch reflector at Lick Observatory near San Jose, California. He was also an adviser to the Laser Electro-Optic Degree Program at San Jose City College in San Jose, and the Astronomy Program at Modesto Junior College in Modesto, California. He has published more than a dozen papers including a refereed document for the Society of Optical Engineers.
Schumacher holds degrees in mathematics, business mathematics and an M.B.A. in emerging and disruptive technologies.
As an amateur astronomer, he received his first telescope from Santa Claus more than six decades ago. The first object viewed was Saturn on Christmas evening. Over the past six decades, he has worked as a Student Assistant, Telescope Maker and Astrophotography instructor at Chabot Observatory in Oakland, California. He has worked on projects at Lick and Mt. Wilson Observatories and the K-12 educational programs (Project: ASTRO) with the National Science Foundation
ORION is a science and astronomy club centered in Oak Ridge supporting the Tamke-Allan Observatory in Kingston. The observatory opens the first and the third Saturday of each month, weather permitting.
Fred Schumacher
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: How to build a personal observatory for stargazing
