February 5, 2003
(PLANETQUEST) -- Amateur astronomer Walter Cruttenden of Newport Beach, California, will join professional astronomer Geoff Marcy later this year in the control room of the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii as Marcy and his colleagues hunt for extrasolar planets. Cruttenden won the opportunity by submitting the winning bid of $16,000 in a fundraising auction conducted by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) on eBay in January.
This insider's auction package includes roundtrip airfare, resort accommodations, car rental, meals and an escorted VIP tour of the Observatory, including restricted areas, such as the Keck I and II telescopes, aluminizing room, mirror barn, and interferometry lab, according to the ASP.
Cruttenden, 52, an investment banker, will be flown to the big island of Hawaii for a five-day trip that also includes dinner hosted by Marcy. Capping off the adventure will be a night alongside Marcy and his colleagues in the Keck control room as they measure radial velocities of stars in their search for planets beyond our solar system.
Marcy is an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Marcy co-leads the team that has discovered approximately 70 of the 100 or so known planets outside the solar system.
