Telescope Time for Sale

Seeking access to the stars? For $150, you can buy an hour on the 32-inch telescope at Tenagra Observatories, 60 kilometers south of Mt. Hopkins in Arizona. When the 24-inch telescope arrives, it will be available for $100 an hour.

The telescopes are completely robotic. Among the current projects by outside users are searches for asteroids, variable phenomena such as active galactic nuclei, and optical signals from gamma-ray bursters. Michael Schwartz, the observatories’ director, founder, and owner, focuses on supernovae and says that more than 40 have been discovered with Tenagra telescopes.

Schwartz earned his fortune from a software company that he started in 1981 and sold, propitiously, in 1997. Two years later, he used his own money to create Tenagra; the name is taken from a character in a Star Trek episode. “I am a renegade academic. I’ve been interested in astronomy since I was a child,” says Schwartz, who holds degrees in archaeology, physics, and physical anthropology—but not astronomy.