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Prime Times Practical Dreamers By Cecelia Goodnow The Associated Press BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. � Popular imagination paints stargazers as a dreamy lot, given to celestial reveries in poet shirts with floppy cuffs. But the scrappy bunch that built the state�s largest amateur-run observatory is more like Josephine the Plumber with a Ph.D. The result of their labors is the Edwin E. Ritchie Observatory, whose powerful scope has been operational for two years. The observatory is at Bainbridge Island�s Battle Point Park. Fine-tuning goes on even now, six years after a trio of resourceful seniors got the project off the figurative drawing board � in this case a napkin filled with notes jotted during a lunchtime brainstorming session. Hunkered amid 90 acres of soccer fields, horse trails and bird ponds, the Ritchie Observatory boasts a computerized 27.5-inch Newtonian telescope capable of recording digitized images. Western Washington abounds with amateur astronomers, some with even larger scopes of their own. But public observatories are few and far between. "Most amateur organizations are just a group of people that meet," says Mac Gardiner, who presides over the 200-member Battle Point Astronomical Association. The Tacoma Astronomical Society has the use of a 15-inch refractor scope at the Pettinger-Guiley Observatory in Puyallup, and the University of Washington has an antique, six-inch scope open to the public. UW�s main research scope, however, is at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. As far as Gardiner knows, the Ritchie Observatory�s closest rival is the 24.5-inch scope at Goldendale Observatory State Park near the Oregon border. But John Rudolph, a co-founder of the Battle Point group, says, "We don�t think we�ll ever put the Hubble out of business. Our whole thrust is education." The Battle Point Astronomical Association sponsors classes year-round, including a kids� robot-building class taught by an electronics wizard who worked on rocket guidance systems. Also popular is a 16-session course on beginning astronomy taught each winter by an Olympic College instructor. Free monthly lectures bring in outside experts, including UW astronomers. The Battle Point group also has a rich Web site (bicomnet.com/ritchieobs/) that covers everything from light pollution to how to buy a telescope. "Generally, we say if you don�t know what you�re doing, get binoculars," says education director Jim Young, a retired physicist with Bell Telephone labs. Ritchie Observatory operates out of Helix House, a concrete shell built to support a Navy radio transmitter during World War II. Twice a month, weather permitting, the Battle Point association plays host to Saturday night "star parties" that draw anywhere from five to 200 people � serious astronomers and casual visitors alike. As twilight descends, amateur astronomers set up their own powerful telescopes out on the lawn. Passers-by are encouraged to take a peek as they wait their turn at the big scope in the 17-foot dome atop Helix House. The party ends, Rudolph says, "when the last person leaves. They�ve been here till 2 o�clock in the morning." Cloud cover can be a problem this time of year, but when the curtain parts, fall skies offer some of the best viewing. Stars are higher in the sky now, and darkness sets in at a more reasonable hour. In summer, astronomical twilight straggles in around 11 p.m., forcing stargazers to work into the wee hours. "If you get a good night in the fall or winter, it�s super good and probably better than some of what you get in the summer," Young said. These gatherings usually coincide with the first and third phases of the moon, when the craters seem to jump right out. "The big telescope makes you think you can see the footprints of the astronauts," says Rudolph, the group�s facilities director. Boeing donations helped The observatory�s driving force was the late Ed Ritchie, a retired contractor and mechanical genius who saw the potential in the abandoned radio blockhouse. Racing to work up a proposal before the island park district�s next meeting two days hence, Ritchie roughed out a plan for building a telescope while Rudolph, an architect, considered how to adapt Helix House for astronomical use. Gardiner, meanwhile, set about creating the Battle Point Astronomical Association to oversee the project. The park board was impressed enough to give the group a $1-a-year lease, renewable in 35 years. Construction involved a series of small hurdles that tested the trio�s resourcefulness. Gardiner, a retired Boeing engineer, scored a major coup when he persuaded his former employer to donate two large mirror blanks left over from the Reagan-era "Star Wars" defense project. The German-made blanks were manufactured of Zerodur, a low-expansion glass ceramic that is resistant to temperature changes that can distort telescopic images. Over the course of a year and a half, Ritchie painstakingly fashioned the smaller, 27.5-inch blank into the mirror that would form the heart of the observatory�s telescope. Using a scrap-metal grinding tool he built in his basement, he planed out the parabolic curve required to bounce celestial images onto a smaller mirror aimed at the scope�s eyepiece. Gardiner estimates it would cost an astronomical $65,000 to $70,000 to buy such a mirror. Ritchie�s grinding machine, about the size of a large table saw, was later moved to the observatory�s machine shop. "This (grinding) equipment here is probably the largest in the Northwest," Gardiner said. The second piece of Boeing glass was a 41 1/2-inch, off-axis mirror, (distorted like a fun-house mirror) that ended up at the University of Arizona optical lab. In return, the Tucson lab gave the Bainbridge astronomers a 26.85-inch professional-quality mirror better suited to the portable telescope they hope to build in the future. Getting rid of the "hump" Rudolph, meanwhile, pondered how to remodel the cavernous Helix House, whose echo-chamber acoustics had made it a favorite with practicing flute players. The concrete shell, built by the Navy in 1942, was 27-by-37 feet � large enough to support an 800-foot-tall radio transmitter tower, which had since been dismantled. More sobering, it was built like the proverbial "brick outhouse," with double-reinforced concrete walls a foot thick � strong enough to withstand potential enemy bombing. Looming 27 feet high, Helix House was tall enough to accommodate two floors of storage and educational facilities. Equally important, it was high enough to give a telescope a leg up over the mature evergreens that border Battle Point Park. Gardiner insisted that work proceed on a cash basis to avoid the debt problems that plagued the Goldendale observatory until the state took it over in 1981. "The thing we learned from Goldendale," he said, "is never borrow money you can�t pay back." Monetary donations, including $15,000 from the Bainbridge Island Rotary Club, moved the project forward. Island contractors not only donated materials and labor, their crews ended up joining the astronomical association. Community volunteers pitched in, forming a bucket brigade to construct a column running from the foundation to above the roof to support and stabilize the 5,000-pound telescope. "It involved tons of concrete hauled up by guys with Ph.D.s," Gardiner said, adding that the concrete block wall is filled with gravel to minimize vibrations. One of the toughest jobs was to rid the lower floor of a massive concrete hump that extended 11 feet across and 3 feet high. The hump originally was a stabilizing base for the large and extremely powerful helical coil needed to operate the Navy transmitter. "John (Rudolph) got a team of guys with electric jackhammers, and they went out one weekend and made some scratches on it," Gardiner said. Rudolph lined up a Seattle demolition team that was willing to blast the hump . . . if the astronomy group first drilled it with 80 holes 3 feet deep. Their $2,000 fee, however, seemed out of reach. Falling back on inventiveness once again, the association raised the funds by selling $10 raffle tickets for the privilege of setting off the first blast. "We were back at the picnic tables about a quarter of a mile away" when the hump was blown up, Young said. "You could see the smoke come out, then you could hear the explosion." The telescope itself is mounted above the roof inside a plywood dome shaped by aluminum ribs and sealed with a skin of liquid rubber. The dome rotates on a circular track, operated by gears machined by Ritchie. "We built this whole thing in a guy�s boathouse and brought it up here," Rudolph said. The telescope can home in on celestial objects throughout the sky, guided by a computer catalog of nearly 5 million stars. The scope�s angle settings are accurate to better than 1/3,600 of a degree. Sadly, Ritchie never got to use the scope. He died in 1997, shortly before completion of the observatory that bears his name. The association�s goal now is to install a new $8,000 electronic camera that will make it possible to record distant objects the human eye cannot detect, even through a telescope eyepiece. "Your human eye can only take a time exposure for up to 1/10 of a second," Gardiner said. "But the things that are interesting to look at are so distant, you need (longer) time exposures." An electronic camera called a charge-coupled device, or CCD, can capture these distant images for viewing on the observatory�s computers. Ritchie was going to build one from a kit but Gardiner says the group decided, "We have a superb astronomical site and a danged good mirror, so let�s buy the best." Gardiner believes that when the CCD is fully operational, the Ritchie Observatory will be the largest amateur astrophotography center in the Northwest. (He qualifies that by adding, "Astronomers are a notoriously reticent people. They don�t yap about what they have unless you ask them.") In the rush to modernize, Rudolph � an avid archaeoastronomer � works to ensure that astronomy�s ancient origins aren�t overlooked. In a nod to simpler times, he drilled a one-inch pinhole lens in the observatory�s south wall. It admits a beam of sunlight whose path marks the seasonal journey between solstice and equinox. "The whole building acts as an archaeoastronomical instrument," Rudolph said with a knowing chuckle. That telltale beam is a humbling reminder of what ancient stargazers accomplished without a drill press to their name. As Rudolph says "Astronomy did not start with the Europeans in the 17th century; it started thousands and thousands of years ago in almost every culture." Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.