y 
compound atop Mount Stromlo. "The fireball came up the mountain and 
gutted everything inside," reports David Herald, an occultation 
specialist who lives in the area. "Yesterday afternoon here was a 
living hell." News reports from the Sydney Morning Herald and other 
media outlets showed burned-out domes and the incinerated tubes of the 
historic instruments they housed.

At least six telescopes have been lost, including the 1.9-meter 
(74-inch) Grubb-Parsons reflector, the 1.3-meter (50-inch) Great 
Melbourne telescope, and the 0.7-meter (26-inch) Yale-Columbia 
refractor. Also destroyed were the 23-cm (9-inch) Oddie refractor, 
which was installed on the summit in 1910, and a laser-ranging station 
with its 1-meter telescope. The fire then consumed the main 
administration building, which housed the observatory's library, but 
the visitor's center and two office buildings containing computerized 
archives were spared. Ian Grubb, vice chancellor of Australian 
National University, stated, "Plans are already being put in place to 
rebuild at Mount Stromlo and restore the research school to its full 
capacity."

Perhaps the most significant scientific loss, reports John Howard of 
the Canberra Astronomical Society, was the workshop containing a 
$5-million imaging spectrograph known as NIFS. The nearly completed 
instrument was just months away from being shipped to the 8-meter 
Gillett (Gemini North) telescope atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_848_1.asp

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A NEAT SUNSET COMET

During the evening of November 6, 2002, astronomers using the 
1.2-meter reflector at Haleakala, Hawaii, discovered a 17th-magnitude 
comet as part of the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program. 
Designated Comet NEAT (C/2002 V1), it brightened quickly through 
December, leading to a suggestion that at perihelion on February 18th, 
it could become quite bright (though largely swamped in the Sun's 
glare). Currently estimated to be magnitude 6.8, the comet can be seen 
in the western sky after sunset, just below the Great Square of 
Pegasus....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/comets/article_847_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* Last-quarter Moon on January 24-25.
* Mercury and Venus shine low in the southeast sky at dawn.
* New Moon on February 1st.

For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/

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JANUARY SALE! (Advertisement)

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quickly, this sale ends February 15th.

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> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=207

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> http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=165

Mars Scape Poster: A Topographical Satellite Map
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Copyright 2003 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is 
provided as a free service to the astronomical community by the 
editors of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic
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