OBSERVATORY CURRENTLY CLOSED DUE TO WINTER WEATHER!
Depending on snow conditions, we may open for tours by reservation
sometime in May, and we'll be open for our regular drop-in public tours
Friday and Saturday nights, starting next Memorial Day weekend.
Here are some general guidelines about visiting the Mountain: 
Program starts at dusk. DRESS WARMLY, we're at
6500 foot elevation!
Bring a small flashlight, covered with red cellophane,
to preserve night vision.
There's a Forest Service Campground adjacent
that has no fees, no reservations, but no water.
Mark Dunaway will furnish pricing information when you
contact him to make your reservation, see info below.
Click here for the link to Pine Mountain webcams
for live weather views.
Click here for details about visiting Pine Mountain
including a virtual tour.
Contact Mark Dunaway, markpmo@oregon.uoregon.edu,
541-382-8331, to schedule group tours to the Observatory,
including school groups, we'll try to begin tours in May,
dependent on Snow and Road Conditions. 
Mark can furnish pricing info for the group tours.

WE'LL VISIT YOUR CLASSROOM:
We offer 45-90 minute long outreach sessions
for grades K-16 classrooms.
Programs cover Sun-Earth-Moon and
Solar System topics,
How We Know What We Know about
very distant objects & phenomena
(technologies, stars, galaxies), and/or
NASA missions in our Solar System. 
Most sessions feature Inquiry Investigations
that incorporate data from the sky.
We use kinesthetic activities, model building,
and various mapping and counting activities.
We show a variety of digital images. 
Ideally max 25 students/class, not generally
for assemblies, although we can do
large group overview presentations.
We can tailor to many different topics
and all ages, and we bring a laptop,
LCD projector, and various other
technologies usually including a telescope.
We need a darkenable room with a screen
to project onto.  We supply prep info,
worksheet masters, and reference info
such as URLs.
We often do multiple repeat sessions,
the key is to station us in one classroom
and rotate each class in, as we have
extensive setup of gadgets we bring.
We can also provide staff development when we
visit, and will offer you many resources.
Click here for additional details from the old FOPMO
website.

Listing of some of our current most popular programs:
1. Apparent Sky Motion: find evidence for Earth's motions in
Solar System by examining images taken by students
of how the night sky changes over short and long time intervals.
2. Construct an Analog Moon Computer:  model the Moon
relative to Earth and Sun (Moon on a stick manipulative),
then construct a dial device from several pieces of cardboard
that lets you envision and explain the relationships of Moon
phase, location in sky, and time of observation.
3. Reasons for Seasons: Do a series of thought and kinesthetic
exercises plus an investigation with light, that lead you to
the reasons why Oregon experiences the Summer/Winter cycles.
In all three of these above programs we incorporate the virtual reality
Sun-Earth-Moon visualization software.
4. How We Know What We Know (about distant objects/phenomena):
Starting with the premise that "the photons are the data",
we investigate the challenge posed by sparse photons from afar, then
engineer telescopes and examine digital cameras as solutions to
collecting and detecting the few and far between photons.  We examine
the nature of the incoming light, and correlate the three measurable
factors of the light to the physical properties of the source and conditions
of the path of travel.  Thus, we work through the technology and
techniques used by astrophysicists to study objects in deep space.
Can be adapted to lower gradelevels.
5. Squashed Stars: Investigate how the Universe forms stars,
the evolution of various types of stars, and the ultimate demise of
some of the larger ones into Black Holes.  We use a variety of media
to illustrate the processes, and students get to try to form black holes
from pieces of aluminum foil.  We measure density with our Gravity Well
model (flexible cloth surface).  We'll examine how we might search for
evidence of black holes and what might happen if you accidentally
fall into one.  We'll also make the connection to the formation of
everyday elements by stars, and can investigate how we think stars
form a retinue of planets.
6. NASA missions out into our Solar System:  We can present a variety
of programs that address the hardware, flight strategies, and findings of
a number of the current missions, including Mars Exploration Rovers and
Cassini-Huygens to Saturn, plus the New Horizons mission to Pluto.  We
also have an overview program about exploration of all the major objects
from the Sun to the Kuiper Belt.
7. The search for exo-solar planets and the chances of finding life out there:
Based on two talks I recently attended (Dr. Seth Shostak of Search for Extra
Terrestrials Institute (SETI), and Dr. Victoria Meadows of Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL), some data and some speculations on the very high chances
that we'll eventually find someone else out there, although we have no direct evidence so far.  The first half of the program addresses the breakthrough
discovery of recent years that apparently most if not all stars have
planets (solar systems), and how one goes about finding indirect evidence
for planets since we cannot yet actually observe bodies orbiting other stars.

Most of the programs incorporate digital illustrations, kinesthetic activities,
and/or opportunities to work with some technology (telescopes, digital
cameras).

We can tailor a program for the topic(s) you desire and of course to
your students' grade level.
 
See the Contacts page for our instructor list.
Cost is a basic $20 to Friends of Pine Mountain
Observatory to cover equipment use costs (we
bring quite a few gadgets), plus travel costs
for the instructor.  At this point we're still
in the process of locating funding resources
for our school visiting operations.