Brief: 'Prairie Fire' to feature radio telescope

WILL-Channel 12's February "Prairie Fire" features a last look at the
Vermillion River Observatory south of Danville, where UI scientists charted
thousands of new galaxies with a pair of radio telescopes from 1958 to 1980.

The show, airing at 8 p.m. Feb. 10, tells the story of the observatory
site, carved into a valley by UI professors and students. Abandoned as
technology changed and vandals took their toll on equipment, the
observatory will be dismantled soon. To return the site to a natural
setting, the university plans to remove a 120-foot-wide telescope, which
still looms like a flying saucer above the trees.

"Prairie Fire" also visits a group of Champaign quilters who gather weekly
to continue the art taught to them by their mothers and grandmothers.  Host
Alison Davis talks with the African-American quilters about the art they
fear is dying in their community. The quilters, whose work is on display at
the Krannert Art Museum, explain the distinctly African-American
improvisation and asymmetry evident in the patterns of their quilts and of
those passed down through generations in their families.

"Prairie Fire" is Channel 12's monthly cultural magazine series about
the people and places of central Illinois.