Sky’s the Limit Observatory exhibit vandalized
Volunteers at a high desert observatory are still trying to figure out who left a unique exhibit in disarray last week.
It’s an exhibit like no other at the Sky’s the Limit Observatory, a walkable model of our solar system.
“The scale is 20 billion to one, and we have the inner planets: Mercury, Venus Earth and Mars, laid out here,” Darrell Shade, a volunteer, said.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1151643867021762560″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Volunteers at Sky’s the Limit Observatory in &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/29Palms?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#29Palms&#lt;/a&#gt; are still trying to figure out who vandalized their walkable solar system exhibit last week. Full story coming up at 6 p.m. on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt;. Photo credit: Darrell Shade &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/HuMFaE4seL”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/HuMFaE4seL&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1151643867021762560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;July 18, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Visitors are able to see the positions of the planets in relation to the sun. Shade says it usually gets surprised reactions.
“Wow…how unique. To see the actual contours of the planets and how they’re not all on the exact same plane,” he said.
But Wednesday last week, Shade found the planets knocked off orbit…
“All of these planets were gone. The stands and the planets, they were nowhere to be found,” he said.
They wound up dumped by a nearby creosote bush, after a short search.
“I guess someone took it and smashed the orb which represents the planet. So three of these orbs were smashed,” he said.
It was a disheartening find for the all-volunteer organization
“I was really hurt and saddened. I mean all of us volunteers give so many hours of our time to be up here to maintain this,” Shade said.
Fortunately, the original artist was able to replace some the smashed orbs, with Mars salvaged together with some glue and sporting new craters. Shade says acts of major vandalism are rare at the site.
“Usually the only mischief that we see is are people that come up and do roadies in the asteroid belt with their cars or trucks,” he said.
Shade had one simple request to whoever the vandals were.
“Please respect Sky’s the Limit’s facility,” he said.
The respect he hopes future visitors will have at the observatory.
Anyone with information about this act of vandalism is encouraged to contact the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department at 760-366-4175.
