
Google gives Lick Observatory $1M - lelf
http://sciblogs01.blogspot.com/2015/03/google-gives-lick-observatory-1-million.html
======
ngoldbaum
As a graduate student in astronomy at UCSC (home of the headquarters of UC
observatories) this has been really great news. After years of budget cuts
there was a very real possibility of Lick closing permanently, aborting
several of my fellow student's PhD projects. Hopefully with continued support
of private donors and the University, Lick will be available for many years to
come for experimentation, technology development, and surveys that do not
require 10 or 30 meter class telescopes.

------
fennecfoxen
Lick Observatory is cool, but the ugly orange low-pressure sodium streetlights
all over San Jose are kind of depressing (and sometimes distressingly hard to
tell apart from yellow stoplights). Alas. Too bad we can't have dark-sky
efforts across the whole spectrum (and the whole Bay).

~~~
raldi
Supposedly they'll all be gone within seven years:

[http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11646883](http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11646883)

------
stefantalpalaru
The laser guide star adaptive optics are fascinating:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_guide_star)

