Amateur astronomer by night, cubicle slave by day. I'm a member of the CAA-Cedar Amatuer Astronomers and we're currently in the middle of a $650k fund raising drive to build a new observatory. The bulding will provide much needed classroom facilities as well as a permanent home for two of our big scopes. One is a donated 24" Boller and Chivens scope and the other is our 16" Robotic scope that will be connected to the local school system. We cater to the public by hosting several public nights from March till October as well as private viewings for groups.
Perfect project for giving your idle computer something to do. Not to mention that the overall goal of finding ET is probably for the betterment of humanity.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.
