
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 20, 1990                   TAG: 9006200316
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS ALLOWED TO USE HUBBLE

The folks who operate the Hubble Space Telescope are offering another opportunity to amateur astronomers to compete for observing time on the $1.5 billion instrument.

Proposals from five amateur astronomers already have been accepted and the projects will be carried out when the telescope begins making scientific observations early next year. The telescope, put into orbit in April, is still being checked out and calibrated.

Riccardo Giacconi, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, issued the invitation for amateurs to conduct "revolutionary new research alongside professionals" within the first 12 months of Hubble operations.

Official application forms are available from the American Association of Variable Star Observers, an organization of amateur astronomers in Cambridge, Mass., NASA said.

- Associated Press

by CNB