FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 16, 2000 CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 PROF. MARSTON TO GIVE FAREWELL PRESENTATION FRIDAY Tony Marston, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Drake University, will give his farewell presentation at the Drake Municipal Observatory at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 18. He will discuss the future of astronomy and assist visitors in viewing stellar objects through the large refracting telescope and several smaller reflecting telescopes. The program, which is free and open to the public, will be held regardless of the weather. The observatory is in the middle of Waveland Park and can be reached by turning west off Polk Boulevard onto Observatory Road. Marston, who has been conducting public presentations at the observatory for six years, is leaving Drake to join the Operations and Observing Support section of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) Science Center in the Ifrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology. SIRTF is a NASA project, the last of its four "great" observatories (the others were the Hubble Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Telescope). Beginning Sept. 1, he will be helping with operations, supporting astronomers in their use of the observatory and doing research. Public presentations at the Drake Municipal Observatory on Friday nights will continue this fall under the direction of Herbert Schwartz, Drake's astronomy lab instructor. His first program, titled "The Earth is Born," will start at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1. For more information about the presentations, call (515) 271-3141.