Hello Stefan, Pat, Vivian and blah: I'm the Trottier who is heading up the SFU observatory project, and I hope you might like to get a (belated) reply to your posts straight from the horse's mouth :). The reason for putting the observatory in the middle of a suburban area is because it is meant first and foremost to serve the public, as well as SFU students: so we are putting the observatory where people can easily get to it - in the city ;). We have been holding public "star parties" at SFU for seven years, using portable telescopes (sfu.ca/starrynights): two weekends ago we hosted more than 200 visitors, mostly young families, on campus, to see the supernova - you need only hear the expressions of wonder from kids (and adults!) when looking through a telescope to appreciate the value and impact of this kind of public outreach. We expect to have thousands of visitors per year when the observatory is up and running - so we *purposely* accept the limits of light pollution. BTW, the Space Centre has its public outreach observatory right across from downtown! And despite the light pollution, there is no end of exciting things to do with a telescope of this size and sophistication, and every reason to make it available for remote operation by schools in the interior. We will invite schools to submit competitive proposals for time on the telescope, and those that get time will conduct the entire operation remotely: opening the dome, slewing to the target, taking pictures or spectra, whatever - an extremely exciting educational experience. Finally, we know that this telescope can be used for research, in certain limited but interesting areas (supernova searches, near-Earth asteroids studies, among others), however these kinds of projects typically require lots of observing time, over extended periods, and we will have difficulty finding enough observing time just to satisfy our public outreach and student education programs. If on the other hand a valuable research proposal comes along that makes sense in the context of our primary objectives, then we'll take it ;). Wow, a very long post: I hope it gives you a better sense of what we are up to, and why. Howard.