Dudley Observatory finds home at miSci
By Cameron J. Castan
Published 9:34 pm, Thursday, August 8, 2013
Once, many of the world's great astronomers were just children gazing up at the cosmos through the lens of a telescope.
The miSci Museum of Innovation and Science, mindful of this, announced Wednesday that the Dudley Observatory is in the process of moving on site to begin work on a series of new collaborations.
"Our focus is on outreach and education. Many children spend only a short time studying space in school. I think that the synergy that we have will really turn our facilities into a center for excellence," said Mac Sudduth the museum's executive director.
For the first time since leaving its once well-known Albany location in 1965 to make way for the Capital District Psychiatric Center, the observatory will have enough space to display its vast collection of historic and scientific artifacts to the public. For many years, Dudley was reduced to operating out of a small office in the Schaffer Heights building near its new home on Nott Terrace.
"Because of our limited space we were only able to make our collection available by appointment. With the move were hoping that our resources will be used to their full potential," said Elissa Kane, Dudley's interim executive director.
According to the observatory's website, during the 20th century Dudley astronomers achieved world-class status with their accurate determination of the positions and motions of more than 30,000 stars. From 1956 to 1976, the observatory was also a world leader in the study of micrometeorites, or tiny particles less than one-10,000th of a meter in diameter, that bombard the earth from space. During the 1970s, it also operated a 100-foot radio telescope. Significant items from its collection include meteorite samples, an astronomical clock made in1856 by famed Albany clockmaker Charles Fasoldt, and a Brashear telescope.
The observatory's History of Astronomy Library and Archives will also be housed alongside miSci's archival collection of more than 1.5 million objects and images. Materials on the history of Dudley, astronomy, astrophysics, and important astronomical works, including early editions of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Gauss will be kept in climate-controlled areas properly equipped for preservation as well as readily available for the use of researchers.
The museum, which already includes a planetarium and offers camps on rocketry and outer space, will gain access to the astronomy expertise of Dudley's board of directors, representing research and education in astronomy and astrophysics done at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Union College, University at Albany and Siena College.
In addition to night sky viewing events, lectures, and other astronomy programs, the observatory offers outreach programs with a portable planetarium dome. The observatory, a private non-profit founded in 1852, is the oldest independent organization in the United States supporting research on astronomy and its history.
"We want to inspire young children. Astronomy asks questions about who we are in relation to everything. The sense of wonder a kid gets from looking up at the stars may one day lead to them pursuing a career in science," Kane said. |
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