Welcome to Winer Observatory
The Irvin Marvin Winer Memorial Mobile Observatory, Inc. (Winer Observatory) was incorporated in 1983 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity to perform basic research in astronomy, provide educational outreach programs, and provide site and maintenance services for small telescopes through cooperative agreements with other astronomical institutions.
The observatory is named after Irvin M. Winer, a physics professor whom our Director, Mark Trueblood, met in graduate school. Irv made such an impression on our Director that he named the observatory after Irv to keep alive the memory of his friend and mentor. It was Irv's and Mark's friend Andrew J. Tomer who suggested the name.
The "Mobile" in our official corporate name originates from our early interest in observing asteroid occultations, which requires the observer to travel to a particular remote location to make the observation. For more information, visit the science section of this Web site.
The picture at the top left of this page is of our facility near Sonoita, Arizona, approximately 50 miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona. It shows the roof rolled back to the left (north) over the shop part of the building (compare this photo with the aerial photo on the Site page). The observatory houses many telescopes including:
- The Planewave 20-inch (0.5-meter) telescope owned by the University of Iowa used primarily for undergraduate student labs
- A Sutter Survey Telescope, owned by TransAstra
- A 28" PlaneWave CDK700 owned by The Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland
Note that we are no longer accepting new telescopes as we begin to wind down our operations.
We have room for a total of six telescopes of up to one meter in aperture on a 20-acre site. Our dark skies and dry weather make the site well-suited to astronomy. Nearby are several professional observatories, including Kitt Peak National Observatory and the MMT Observatory (MMTO is only about 20 miles away). Several amateur astronomers have made the Sonoita area the home for their observatories as well, including James McGaha and Dr. Tim Hunter of Grasslands Observatory, John Messina of Rio Rico Skies Observatory, and several others.
All Sky Camera
As a service to our customers, we provide access to an All Sky Camera. We are currently installing a new camera, so this service has been temporarily interrupted.
You can also download:
- AVI format: slow video clip of the All Sky Camera (1Mb).
- WMV format: fast video clip of the All Sky Camera (1Mb).
Click the image on the right to obtain the latest full-sized image. We invite not only our customers, but the general community to download images from time to time to see pictures of the weather above our site. Students may wish to check images for meteors or other astronomical phenomena of interest.
Template page last updated on: September 4, 2023