MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Contact: Mary Beth Murrill
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 17, 1998
"SIDEWALK ASTRONOMER" HITS THE STREETS ON A MISSION FROM JPL
He hits the downtown streets in darkness, and he's on a
mission.
Armed with a telescope, tripod and star charts, "sidewalk
astronomer" Dave Doody of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is
setting out into night in Pasadena's Old Town this Saturday,
Sept. 19, to bring the planets to the people.
The last time he set up a 200-millimeter-diameter (8-inch)
Tinsley telescope on the streets of Pasadena, Doody said that a
line of people stretched halfway down the block, and more than
900 were able to view Jupiter and some of its moons over the
course of the evening. "People offered money to look, but of
course it's free-of-charge," said Doody, who volunteers his time
as a street astronomer as a member of JPL's Amateur Astronomy
Club, which has the telescope on loan from the Lab's Telescopes
In Education project.
Doody said that most of the people he meets on his urban
skywatching adventures have never before looked at the heavens
through a telescope. "When people look at a little dot in the
sky with their naked eye, then see it through the telescope, they
see why it's so fascinating and why you want to send a spacecraft
to it to study it close-up," he said. "Most people are
astounded."
An engineer at JPL since 1982, Doody is currently a flight
operations engineer on NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn, which
was launched last October on a seven-year flight to the ringed
planet. A former instructor for Japan Airlines pilots who has
also worked as a systems engineer on Santa Catalina Island, Doody
is the co-author of "The Basics of Space Flight," a popular web
site on JPL's Internet home page. His articles also appear
occasionally in popular magazines.
This Saturday, Doody plans to set up his sidewalk
observatory on the pavement on the north side of Pasadena's
Colorado Boulevard "somewhere between Raymond on the east and
DeLacey on the west, depending on where I can find a parking
space," he said. "Jupiter is the main target at 8 p.m., but we
may see Saturn later."
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, CA.
#####
9/17/98 MBM
#9894