Winer ObservatoryHistory of the Winer Observatory
The Irvin Marvin Winer Memorial Mobile Observatory, Inc. was incorporated in 1983 in the
state of Maryland when its founders, Mark and Pat Trueblood, were living in the Washington,
D.C. area. Mark's friend, Andrew J. Tomer suggested naming the observatory after a very
special professor both had known when Mark was in graduate school in the Department of
Physics at Wesleyan University. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service awarded Winer Observatory
its preliminary ruling as a Section 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity in May 1984 and its
final ruling in July 1989.
After Mark spent 18 years in the Washington, D.C. area working primarily in the aerospace industry, Mark and Pat moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1990 and began looking for a site for their home and observatory. They spent over six months looking at various real estate options before purchasing the land in Sonoita where the Winer Sonoita Field Station is located. In 1992, they moved into the new home they built, and within a couple years, they began work on the observatory building, performing construction tasks as funds became available.
Originally, the shop area of the building was to be about 25 feet wide by 50 feet long, and the observatory was to be about 25 feet wide by only 25 feet long. In early 1997, the University of Iowa inquired if it would be possible to place their Iowa Robotic Observatory telescope at our site. We were aware of the Fairborn Observatory and the concept of the "telescope farm", and decided to see if there was a market beyond the Iowa telescope. We extended the length of our observatory design by another 10 feet to 35 feet, submitted the final plans for approval by the County, and began construction in earnest. After the shop building was built and just as construction on the observatory section was about to begin, we decided to extend the length of the observatory as much as possible to 50 feet, so the roof would just barely fit on the shop (we later cleared everything with the County, and the inspector signed off on the building permit and let us occupy the building). The very evening we completed installing the roof drive system, the truck arrived from the University of Iowa with their telescope in October, 1997.
Funds for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center lunar coronagraph were provided by NASA Purchase Order NNG12PD38P. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these web pages are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
A summary of our customer history appears below.
| Customer | Aperture (Inches) | Mount | Instrument | Pad | Installed | Removed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Univ. of Iowa | 20" R-C (made at U. Iowa) | Alt-az | Apogee SITe 1kx1kx24um | 1 | 10/1997 | 9/2003 |
| Winer Observatory | Former U. Iowa 20" | Alt-az | Apogee SITe 1kx1kx24um | 1 | 9/2003 | 1/2007 |
| Tenagra Observatories | 14" Celestron SCT | GS-1100 Paramount | Apogee SITe 512x512x24um | 4 | 10/1998 | 7/1999 |
| Spectashift.com | 16" Meade SCT | Equatorial | Fiber-fed spectrograph | 4 | 2/2000 | 3/2000 |
| Washington Univ. in St. Louis | 20" Torus R-C #1 | Equatorial | FLI SITe 1kx1kx24um | 4 | 11/2000 | 4/2010 |
| Washington Univ. in St. Louis | 20" Torus R-C #2 | Equatorial | Apogee SITe 1kx1kx24um | 2 | 11/2000 | 3/2003 |
| ISS-AT / Astronomical League | 14" Celestron SCT | Astrophysics equatorial | SBIG CCD imager | 3 | 2/2002 | 9/2003 |
| Univ. of Iowa | 14.5" Torus R-C | Equatorial | FLI SITe 1kx1kx24um | 5 | 5/2002 | 5/2007 |
| Univ. of Iowa | 14.5" Torus R-C | Equatorial | FLI Kodak 3kx3kx12um | 1 | 9/2007 | N/A |
| Spectashift.com | 16" Meade SCT | Equatorial | Fiber-fed spectrograph | 6 | 4/2004 | 5/2004 |
| Ohio State Univ. | 200 mm FL f/2.8 | Paramount ME | Apogee Kodak 4kx4kx9um | 3 | 10/2004 | N/A |
| Ohio State Univ. | Meade 20" SCT | Meade Max Mount | FLI Fairchild 2k x 2k | 5 | 4/2008 | N/A |
| NASA/GSFC | Lunar Coronagraph | Paramount ME | SBIG | 6 | 1/2013 | N/A |
| Adam Mickiewicz University | PlaneWave CDK700 | PlaneWave | Fiber-fed spectrograph | 2 | 10/2013 | N/A |
Page last updated on: June 5, 2014
