UN-SPONSORED TELESCOPE 'LAUNCHES' ADVANCED SPACE RESEARCH IN SRI LANKAN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY
Press Release
OS/1718
UN-SPONSORED TELESCOPE 'LAUNCHES' ADVANCED SPACE RESEARCH IN SRI LANKAN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY
19960222 VIENNA, 22 February (UN Information Service) -- A Sri Lankan astronomical observatory, housing a 45-centimetre United Nations-sponsored telescope, is due to begin observing binary stars next week in cooperation with a South African observatory. The project is one of many advanced research activities which Sri Lanka and many other developing countries are increasingly undertaking with the aid of a United Nations programme to ensure that the benefits of space science are shared with developing countries.The Sri Lankan telescope facility was inaugurated last month at the country's Arthur C. Clarke Centre -- named for the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, its primary patron. The Cassegrain Goto astronomical telescope, obtained through a grant from Japan, fills a long-felt need among Sri Lanka's professional and amateur astronomers for a telescope commensurate with their research capabilities.
According to Nandasiri Jasentuliyana, Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the telescope and supporting equipment will contribute to regional and international space science programmes while, for the first time, enabling Sri Lanka to launch an astronomy-based education programme in its universities and high schools. Developing countries, he said, are clearly on their own "space odyssey" five years before 2001.
In a keynote address at the facility's inaugural workshop last month, Mr. Clarke pointed out that, for many years, the absence of a professional telescope had hindered the development of space studies in Sri Lanka. Although the country produced some top-class astronomers, they were all working abroad, and enthusiastic amateurs were restricted in their observation work.
The observatory was inaugurated at a Workshop on Basic Space Science which was sponsored jointly by the United Nations Space Applications Programme and the European Space Agency (ESA) in Colombo from 11 to 14 January. The 74 astronomers and space scientists from 25 countries who attended that event recommended that a model education and research programme for small telescopes be carried out to help put such equipment in world-wide operation.
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Other developments fostered by the United Nations Space Applications Programme include the establishment of observatories in Colombia and Honduras, a feasibility study for an Inter-African Astronomical Observatory and Science Park in Namibia and the upgrade of the Kottamia telescope facility in Egypt. The United Nations is also working with Ghana, Nigeria, the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago and Viet Nam, which have also expressed interest in establishing small telescope facilities.
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