Boyden Observatory
Research observatory and education centre in South Africa.
In Maselspoort, twenty kilometres northeast of Bloemfontein, the University of the Free State's Physics Department runs Boyden Observatory, a site for both astronomical research and science education. A public support group called Friends of Boyden helps organise open evenings and safeguard its public role, while volunteers from the local ASSA Bloemfontein Centre amateur astronomy club provide presenters and telescope assistance.
Quick Facts
- Organization
- University of the Free State
- Location
- Maselspoort, South Africa
- Established
- 1889
Facts from the source article.
History
The Boyden Station of Harvard Observatory was founded in 1889 by Harvard University at Mount Harvard near Lima, Peru, and moved to Arequipa, Peru in October 1890. It was named after Uriah A. Boyden, who left $238,000 to Harvard Observatory in his 1879 will. At Arequipa, William Henry Pickering discovered Phoebe, an outer moon of Saturn, using photographic plates from the 24-inch Bruce Astrograph. The site near Mazelspoort was formally dedicated in 1933. John S. Paraskevopoulos served as its first and longtime director in South Africa from 1927 to 1951. Financial issues at Harvard nearly closed Boyden in 1954, but several European countries became partners. In 1975 Harvard, which had transferred title to the Smithsonian Institution, announced it would withdraw support the following year. The University of the Free State agreed to support the facility, and it was donated to UFS in 1976.
Telescopes
The main instrument at Boyden is the 60-inch Cassegrain reflector known as the Boyden-UFS Telescope or the Rockefeller Reflector. Its story begins with Andrew Ainslie Common, who figured a mirror in 1885 and another in 1890 for a 60-inch Newtonian reflector that was later converted to a Cassegrain design. The telescope fell out of use and was purchased from Common's estate by the Harvard College Observatory. The primary mirror was re-figured in 1933 and installed at Boyden on a new mount. In the mid-1960s, the Hamburg firm Heidenreich and Harbeck built a new mirror cell to address problems caused by the mirror's thinness and its non-flat back surface. Shortly after, the original Common mirror was replaced with a new 60-inch mirror from Loomis made of low-expansion glass. A major upgrade in 2001 by DFM Engineering added a new control system, modifications to the mirror cell, and a new primary light shield. From 2005 to 2009, the telescope participated in the Probing Lensing Anomalies Network. The Watcher Robotic Telescope is a 40 cm f/14.25 robotic telescope developed by University College Dublin and UFS, used mainly for visual spectrum observations following gamma-ray bursts. The Nishimura Telescope is a 16-inch reflector commissioned by Nagoya University and built by Nishimura Co. Ltd. in 2000, but it was not in use as of 2009. The Alvan Clark Telescope is a 13-inch refractor named after its maker, first installed at Mount Wilson Observatory in 1889, and now used for outreach. A 10-inch Metcalf Photographic Triplet Refractor is kept as a display item, and a 20 cm coelostat serves outreach purposes. The 0.9 m Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard Telescope was a Schmidt-Cassegrain built in 1949 by Perkin-Elmer and installed at Bloemfontein in 1950, but it never performed well; its mirrors and lens were removed in 1981 and sent to Dunsink. The 0.6 m Bruce Astrograph, a refractor built in 1893 by Alvan Clark & Sons, was used in Arequipa before being moved to Bloemfontein. Plates from this telescope allowed Harlow Shapley to discover the Sculptor and Fornax dwarf galaxies, the first of their kind. It was replaced in 1950 by the Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard Telescope.
Facilities
Facilities include the main building with original offices and library, the resident astronomer's house, a state-of-the-art auditorium seating 100 inside and 200 on its roof for open-air sky shows, main and smaller telescope buildings, a lecture room, store room, the ASSA Bloemfontein clubhouse, observation platforms, and various vantage points. Visitor numbers are growing, and medium-term plans include an educational walking route, a museum and science exhibition areas, and upgraded educational telescope facilities. Long-term plans include a digital planetarium and a fully-fledged Science Hall; a digital planetarium already operates on Naval Hill in Bloemfontein inside the original dome of the Lamont-Hussey observatory.
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