Wise agrees that Northumberland needs to do more to take advantage of its dark skies, which are very rare. He believes the region needs more observatories to make sure that visitors will see what they came for. A new £14-million national landscape discovery center will have an observatory when it is completed in a couple of years. Fildes has big ambitions. He is planning Britain’s first “astrovillage” – it would have the largest public observatory in the world, a 100-seat auditorium, a 100-seat planetarium, and radiomagnetic and solar telescopes. The multimillion-pound project would also have a hotel and attract 100,000 visitors a year – that is four times the number that are currently able to use the observatory. Fildes believes the astrovillage will be a reality by 2018.
What is Fildes’ ambition?
Creating Britain’s first “astrovillage” Replacing the observatory’s radiomagnetic and solar telescopes Creating a £14-million national landscape discovery center Starting a network of observatories around the worl