Monday, Sept. 9, 1985
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan
7
Astronomers honor 100 years of KU star gazing
By John Williams Of the Kansan staff
In 1918, a former professor of astronomy, Dinsmore Alter, announced plans for developing KU's observatory into a self-sustaining, first-class research center.
Anyone familiar with the University's astronomy department, which is celebrating the centennial of KU's Clyde W. Tombaugh Observatory,
Bruce Twarog, assistant professor
of physics and astronomy and acting director of the observatory, said Saturday that the history of the observatory and astronomy programs paralleled each other in the ups and downs they had been through.
But because the department is celebrating its centennial, Twarog said he hoped students and the public would become more interested in the department and in astronomy.
"Today we have three astronomers working on research, nothing like
what the original planners had in mind," he said.
For the past 20 years the astronomy department has survived with only one official astronomer as its director.
"The chairperson was really here
to just keep the department above water." he said.
The department of astronomy and physics will sponsor several lectures and discussions to celebrate the centennial and make the public more
aware of what is happening in astronomy.
The first lecture in the KU Astronomy Centennial Series will be given at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in Alderson Auditorium at the Kansas Union. J. Craig Wheeler, professor of astronomy at the University of Texas will be giving a lecture titled "Black Holes, Stars and Galaxies."
The free presentation is open to the public.
The department also will be
inviting the 12 or 15 alumni who have been successful in making astronomy their careers back to the University of Kansas to visit with students, Twarog said.
"We want to give our students a much broader background of experience," Twarog said. "Now they just get the experience from the three astronomers we have here. With the alums, the students will be able to see the ups and downs of what they are doing."
One encouraging sign of better
times, Twarog said, was that the enrollment in the beginning astronomy courses this year increased by about 150 people over last year.
The University began offering astronomy as a course in 1876, but an observatory was not built until 1885.
The observatory had a 6-inch Alvan Clark refractor and a 2-inch transit telescope. The observatory was torn down within a year, however.
KPL lowers rates for cool August
By Karen Blakeman Of the Kansan staff
This month's electric bills will be six-tenths of a cent cheaper a kilowatt-hour than last September, KPL Gas Service Co. announced last week.
If a customer used 750 kilowattours of electricity in August 1984 and the same amount in August this year, his September bill this year would be about $4.50 cheaper, said Tom Taylor, spokesman for KPL Gas Service in Topeka.
Large industrial customers — such as the University of Kansas — could be affected.
Taylor said the rate change was adopted because the cost of generating electricity was less than had been anticipated for August.
"August was cooler than usual this year," he said, "and people used their air conditioners less. This of course means they used fewer kilowatt-hours of electricity, but it also means the electricity was less expensive to produce."
Residential customers, who paid 7.6 cents for each kilowatt-hour of
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Dick Perkins, associate director of KU facilities operations, said the September 1984 bill for the Lawrence campus was $414,389 for more than 7.8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.
"If all other things are equal, the September bill for the University should be $45,000 to $50,000 less than last year," he said.
Taylor said the University could expect the energy cost adjustment to produce a savings of more than 11 percent.
Perkins said that if the University spent less than the $6 million budgeted for utilities by the Kansas Legislature each fiscal year, the remaining money would be used for energy conservation projects.
electricity used in August 1984, will pay 7 cents for each kilowatt-hour used in August 1985 — an 8 percent decrease, Taylor said.
"We saved about $200,000 last year," he said. "We're working on several energy projects now."
Projects in the offing, Perkins said, include improvements for heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems at Wescoe Hall, and additions to the lighting systems of various buildings on campus that will turn off the lights automatically when there is no one in the room.
Perkins said any energy conservation funds saved this year would be used to expand those projects.
"They've been gradually creeping prices up, so it's about time we felt some reductions."
"Utility rates are something like a bible," Anderson said. "You can take out a piece and use it to say anything."
Tom Anderson, director of facilities operations, was cautious in his response to the KPL Gas Co. announcement.
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