Previous Updates

UPDATE for February 2009

Firstly, Welcome to the
International Year of Astronomy!

Since our last update in November 2008, the POAC committee has not rested, except over the Christmas and New Year period!

During the later part of November 2008, we got our POAC website up and running – www.poac.org.au . Our web-guru Patrick Byrnes has done a fantastic job, and we’re very proud of the site, which is under continual development.

In early December 2008, POAC finalised a Business Proposal, which was provided to the Deputy Prime Minister in her role as the Federal Education Minister; and to Andrew Barr in his role as the ACT Education Minister. A copy of the Business Proposal will be available on the POAC website soon.
In mid December 2008, the Federal Government announced a range of funding initiatives for education, infrastructure and tourism, in an effort to boost the economy.

This was a very timely set of announcements, and POAC and ANU have been in consultation with the relevant agencies to determine if the relocation might fall into one of these funding categories. This is an ongoing process, as more funding seems to be announced every month.

In late December 2008, the final version of the Feasibility Study for the Relocation of the Canberra Space Dome and Observatory to Mt Stromlo (the Study) was finalised by Geoff Driscoll Architects Pty Ltd. The Study outlines a number of options for relocating the CSDO equipment and buildings. A brief summary is outlined below:
The Report recommends 4 main options:
 
Option 1.0      $2,607,241      To relocate the external building and internals to adjacent to the Visitors Centre, at ground level
 
Option 1.1      $2,680,456      To relocate the external building and internals to adjacent to the Visitors Centre, on a raised floor the same height as the Visitors Centre
 
Option 2.0      $2,805,378      To build a new external building and relocate the old internals adjacent to the Visitors Centre, at ground level
 
Option 2.1      $2,892,094      To build a new external building and relocate the old internals adjacent to the Visitors Centre, on a raised floor the same height as the Visitors Centre.
 
As well as covering the cost to either relocate the facility from Dickson or build a new external building to house the relocated internals, these figures include the cost to relocate the telescopes, space ship, repainting and recarpeting, a digital hardware upgrade ($600,000), and Zeiss (main projector) software upgrade ($100,000). A 30% contingency has been applied to the sum of these costs.
 
Although Options 1.0 and 1.1 are less expensive, they carry a higher risk of encroaching on contingency reserves when compared to Options 2.1 and 2.2, as the costs associated with building a new outer building can be more easily estimated, and therefore carry a reduced level of risk.
 
The Committee hopes to be able to provide a copy of the full report on our web site in the near future. As it is not POAC’s document, we need to ask for ANU’s permission to make it publicly available.

To further raise public awareness, Patrick has developed a ‘forum’ on our website for people to use to record their support for the project. It is crucial that public support for the planetarium and observatory is tangible and able to be measured in some way by potential external stakeholders, such as Government or sponsors.

On the Government front, POAC met with the ACT Opposition Leader, Mr Zed Seselja, in December 2008. Mr Seselja was very excited by the project and undertook to support any budgetary measures that might be contained in the upcoming ACT Budget. He mentioned his family has been to the CSDO more than once, so he was familiar with the facility. We met with Senator Gary Humphries, who promised to look into funding options for us.

POAC also met with Ms Meredith Hunter, of the ACT Greens, to see whether they might use their balance of power to assist us. Ms Hunter was very interested in the project, but did not believe that there would be any funding available from Government, given the economic downturn and that the coming Budget was expected to be rather tight. Ms Hunter encouraged POAC and the ANU to seek corporate sponsorship from local entrepreneurs.

Finally, we will be holding POAC’s Annual General Meeting in April, at a date and venue to be confirmed. We will be encouraging members to renew their membership prior to the meeting. Our membership form is on our website, and renewal is just a small fee - $5. We have provided the facility for members to renew on-line and through direct deposit into POAC’s account.

Craig Collins
President,
Planetarium and Observatory Association of Canberra