Founded in 1983, Winer Observatory is a non-profit public charity. All donations are tax deductible. Our Indiegogo campaign in February and March 2014 is to fund a new telescope to track Near Earth Objects (NEOs), asteroids and comets with a possibility of hitting the Earth.
Just a year ago, a city of 1 million people in Russia narrowly missed complete destruction from an asteroid; as it was, 1500 sought medical care, and 7200 buildings were damaged. If the asteroid had entered the atmosphere at a higher angle, most of those 1 million people would be dead. Many asteroids (Near Earth Objects or NEOs) are in orbits around the Sun that bring them very close to Earth. Many have hit the Earth in the past, and continue to do so. Even small NEOs can pose a threat to your life and our civilization. Despite reduced science funding from Congress, we will address this issue with your help. Using funds raised through this campaign, we will purchase a telescope and camera to track these NEOs after discovery. Every clear, dark night, we will use this telescope to track NEOs and report our data to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, MA, which computes orbits and determines if an NEO will hit Earth with its colleagues at NASA/JPL and Italy. We have an experienced team in place and a committee of project advisors with the talent and expertise to ensure success. Our goal is to make life safer for you -- and all of us! Let's not go the way of the dinosaurs, which were probably wiped out by an impact from an asteroid only a few miles across.
