Vassar College Observatory

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**Vassar College Observatory**
Telescopes
Organization	Vassar College
Location	New York (USA)
Coordinates	41°40′59.7″N, 73°53′26.4″W
Altitude
Webpage	Vassar College Observatory
Unnamed	20 inch reflector
Unnamed	32 inch reflector

The Vassar College Observatory stands today at Vassar College in New York.

1 History
- 1.1 List of Directors
2 See also
3 External Links
4 References

[edit] History

The Vassar College Observatory was built in 1865. It was, in fact, the first building constructed on the Vassar College campus in Poughkeepsie, New York. The first director of the observatory was Maria Mitchell, the first widely known woman astronomer in the United States. Her principle focus was on observing planets and their satellites. Though primarily a professor of astronomy and mathematics, she was an avid advocate for using the observatory as part of courses of study. Students could frequently be found using both the main telescope and any number of smaller instruments. In addition to serving as an educational and research facility, the original observatory also served as a home for Maria and her father during and after her tenure as professor.

Professor Mary W. Whitney assumed the directorship in 1888. She had been a student of Mitchell's. Whitney focused on comets and published in 1890, 1892 and 1895 in the Astronomical Journal.

It was noted in Popular Astronomy in 1904, "In general the work done at Vassar is similar to that done at several of the smaller German and Italian Observatories."

Today, the old observatory is no longer used for research. While the building still stands, the telescope has been removed and most of the building is used as office space. In the late 1990s, a new observatory was built on the Vassar College campus. The Class of '51 Observatory is a state-of-the-art facility that houses two telescopes; one 20-inch reflector used primarily for public outreach, and a 32-inch reflector used for teaching and research. It is tied with the Austin-Fellows telescope of the Stull Observatory at Alfred University for the honor of being the largest telescope in the state of New York.