[Kabar-indonesia] Lembang Observatory sees light at end of land battle

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Jakarta Post 
Saturday, September 2, 2006

Observatory sees light at end of land battle

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

After 15 years of waiting, the Bandung Institute of Technology has received 
official recognition that it owns the land of the Bosscha Observatory in 
Lembang.

Observatory technical services head Taufik Hidayat said the National Land 
Agency planned to the issue the institute with a certificate for 82.6 hectares of 
land in the Bosscha area.

"The certificate is normally issued three months (after the money is paid)," 
Taufik told a spatial planning team from the House of Representatives in 
Lembang on Thursday.

Settlement of the area around the observatory has caused increasing air and 
light pollution and made it almost impossible for scientists to use its four 
large telescopes.

Ideally, residential areas should be up to five kilometers away from 
observatories.

"At the moment, there are residential areas 100 meters away," Taufik said.

He said the increasing light levels around Bosscha first began to worsen in 
the 1980s when increasing number of people began to move into the area, casting 
artificial light into the sky. Meanwhile, air pollution made it difficult for 
the telescopes to penetrate the haze.

"Now the level of sky darkness in Bosscha is only around 60 percent, making 
it almost impossible to use the telescope to watch objects," he said.

He hoped there would be strict land-use policies which would include the 
regreening of the land around the observatory, which was set up in 1923 to monitor 
the Southern Hemisphere sky.

Deputy head of the special team Abdullah Azwar Anas said Bosscha was one of 
13 designated areas that would be protected with special regulations. He said 
he had told the local administration to start regreening the area.

"We will order the Bandung regent and mayor to immediately regreen an area 
some two kilometers away to ensure the preservation of this valuable scientific 
asset," Azwar said. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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