Bjorn Carey at Space.com:
Gold shovels on hand, officials broke ground last week for the $35 million Discovery Channel Telescope to be built at the Lowell Observatory in Happy Jack, Arizona.
The partnership between the 111-year-old observatory and Discovery Communications began when Discovery caught wind that Lowell was looking into building a next generation telescope.
“The Discovery Channel Telescope and Lowell Observatory match up with Discovery’s core genre,” said Carrie Passmore, Senior Vice President of Public Partnerships at Discovery Communications. “It made perfect sense for us to make this move.”
The Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) will be one of the most sophisticated ground-based telescopes of its size. At 4.2 meters, it will be the fifth largest telescope in the continental United States. It’s scheduled to see “first light” in 2009 and should be fully operational by 2010.
More here.