KEEN OBSERVATION: You must go to another...

KEEN OBSERVATION: You must go to another county if you want to check the skies at a solar observatory. But that will soon change. . . . Saddleback College in Mission Viejo says it’s building the first solar observatory in the county--mainly for sun observations, but the filters will be removed for night stargazing. . . . The observatory, scheduled to open in March, is being built on the roof of the math-science-engineering building. It will be mainly for Saddleback students, but will also be made available to the public and to other schools.

OVER THE SHOULDER: The Orange County Bicycle Coalition, which represents about 2,500 bike riders, is pushing Caltrans to make the shoulders of the new Foothill Transportation Corridor--scheduled for 1999--into bicycle lanes. . . . The coalition wants bike lanes between Alton Parkway and Portola Parkway on the new highway. . . . “The use of freeway shoulders by cyclists is not unprecedented in Southern California,” says coalition Executive Director Don Harvey. . . . No answer yet from Caltrans.

GOING HIGHER: Passengers keep setting records at John Wayne Airport, about 7.2 million in 1995, and--thanks to a plan approved by the Board of Supervisors last week--it should jump another half-million more in 1996. The board has approved two new commuter carriers--SkyWest’s Canada Air Regional Jet and Great Lakes Aviation. . . . How high can the passenger numbers go at John Wayne? Just to 8.4 million, its federal limit.

TET WITH US? Garden Grove Mayor Bruce A. Broadwater has written an open letter to the Vietnamese community asking its support for his city’s Tet festival next month--instead of Westminster’s. Westminster had dropped Tet last year, so Garden Grove took it over. Now both cities have festivals scheduled. Complains Broadwater: “Westminster is playing politics with the Vietnamese community, this ‘on-again, off-again’ business.”