Observatory

Brent and Morgan upgraded the Union College SRT detectors with adviser Jon Marr as part of their Summer 2014 research project sponsored by New York NASA Space Grant.

The Union College Observatory houses a 20-inch optical telescope equipped with CCD cameras and a spectrograph (above), as well as a 7.5-foot radio telescope (at left). Both are used in a number of physics and astronomy courses and for research projects in observational and radio astronomy.

More details and a list of upcoming Open Houses may be found on the Observatory website.

Professor Wilkin holding the first edition of Galileo’s 1610 book announcing the discovery of 4 moons around Jupiter. The students are from the Sophomore Research Seminar “New Worlds”.

Union College houses the Dudley Observatory's rare books. At left, Professor Wilkin shows the first edition of Galileo’s 1610 book announcing the discovery of 4 moons around Jupiter to students from the Sophomore Research Seminar “New Worlds”.

On the table, the light-covered book is the first edition of Copernicus’ 1543 book proposing the sun as the center of the solar system, and the darker covered book is Galileo’s 1632 book Dialogs concerning two new sciences, which offended the church because the scholar arguing in favor of the geocentric model always lost the argument, not to mention being named Simplicio.