The Cincinnati Observatory housed the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center from 1947 until his retirement in 1978. Paul Herget, then the observatory’s director, became a pioneer in using electronic computing machines for astronomical calculations. The second director, Cleveland Abbe, published the nation’s first weather forecasts and later helped found the National Weather Service.įollowing World War II, Dr. There’ve been other notable directors over the years as well. Mitchel, the first director, wrote and edited the first astronomical publication in the U.S., The Sidereal Messenger. They built a second building on the campus and moved the older telescope there.įor decades, the Cincinnati Observatory was a top research institution. a 16-inch Alvan Clark and Sons refractor. In 1904, the observatory purchased a larger telescope from Cambridgeport, Mass. The structure was designed by architect Samuel Hannaford, perhaps best known for two of his later designs - Cincinnati’s Music Hall and City Hall. Sitting at the end of a tree-lined street on four acres of hilltop land, the Greek revival-style building is noticeable for its distinctive silver dome. The neighborhood later became Mount Lookout, named in honor of the observatory. To get away from the light pollution of downtown, the telescope moved in 1873 to a new location five miles east of the city. (Photo courtesy of Cincinnati Observatory) The present site of the Cincinnati Observatory. “He wanted to bring science and astronomy to everyone and providing access to the telescope was one way to do it.” “He was the Carl Sagan or the Neil deGrasse Tyson of his time,” Regas said. That helped earn it the nickname of “The People’s Telescope.” Mitchel would sometimes have his research interrupted by visitors who wanted to look through it, Regas said. Studying stars and planets wasn’t new in the 1840s, but the belief that information should be available to everyday people was uncommon. He made sure the observatory was also open to the public. Back then, its telescope was the third-largest in the world and the University of Cincinnati used it as a key facility for astronomical research and education.īut Mitchel didn’t want to reserve its use for the scientific community alone. Nowadays, people refer to it as Mount Adams, renamed for President John Quincy Adams after he spoke at the facility’s dedication in 1843.įrom its beginning, the Cincinnati Observatory was unlike any other facility of its kind. They built the observatory around the telescope in a part of town then known as Mount Ida, overlooking downtown Cincinnati. The last leg of its journey to Cincinnati was by boat up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. It was enough to buy a top-of-the-line telescope in Europe, with a high-quality 11-inch lens.ĭesigners constructed the tube from brass and mahogany and they shipped the completed telescope to New Orleans. Mitchel raised more than $9,000 - “an incredible sum of money at the time,” Regas said. Determined to build an observatory in the Queen City, he raised money by going door-to-door in 1842.ĭean Regas, the observatory’s current astronomer, said Mitchel asked for $25 per person, the equivalent of $876 today. (Photo courtesy of Dean Regas)Īn eloquent speaker, Mitchel helped popularize astronomy across the United States. When Mitchel opened the observatory in 1845, he did so to make astronomy and science accessible for the common person.ĭean Regas, astronomer at the Cincinnati Observatory. It was also the first public observatory in the western hemisphere. Known as “The Birthplace of American Astronomy,” the Cincinnati Observatory is home to one of the oldest working telescopes in the world. He led the campaign to build the Cincinnati Observatory, even toiling away by doing some of the construction work himself. While the observation no longer functions well as a research facility, it’s developed a new life as an education center for would-be astronomy loversīut Mitchel’s lasting legacy is more otherworldly.It moved from its original home in present day Mount Adams to its current site in Mount Lookout in 1873.Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel led fundraising to help construct the observatory in the 1840s and then served as its first astronomer.Known as the “Birthplace of American Astronomy,” the Cincinnati Observatory is one of the oldest astronomy centers in the western hemisphere.
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