After Facilities disposed of the pedestal mount that had supported Ohio University’s 10-inch J.W. Fecker refractor telescope for decades, plans are being put into place to attempt to replace the irreplaceable.
Because of a miscommunication, the 1,750-pound cast-iron pier was “ground up,” said Associate Vice President for Facilities Harry Wyatt — making the telescope, which had previously been removed, useless.
Now, the Division of Risk Management and Safety will treat the loss of the telescope mount as a “self-insured loss,” said Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding.
Golding said Associate Vice President for Risk Management and Safety Joe Adams has communicated with David Ingram, chairman of the department of physics and astronomy, to try to identify a similar mount elsewhere that can be purchased or used as a model to replicate the original.
“We have insurance that would probably cover that,” Adams said.
Adams said he told Ingram the university will pay internally for the replacement, Golding said.
“We currently anticipate that the mount will cost less than $100,000, so we are not expecting to file a claim, and we will cover the cost of the mount replacement out of our budget self-insurance reserves, which we have set aside for incidents such as this one,” OU spokeswoman Katie Quaranta said in an email.
Ingram said replacing the mount won’t be easy. The potential plan put in place is to visit Illinois, where a similar telescope is located.
“We will take measurements of that base to see what the cost is to get a new base cast or fabricated, and we will take things from there,” Ingram said.
The other telescope, which was located on the roof of the physics building at the University of Alabama, is now owned by John Allseits, founding member of the Antique Telescope Society. He bought it from the university for $22,000 in 2005, according to a previous Post article.
“There was probably only six of these made back in (the) ’50s,” Allseits said. “Replacing the base — it’s possible, but it will be difficult, that’s for certain.”
If all goes as planned and a new base can be constructed, Ingram said the telescope will not be placed in its old home atop the roof of the Research and Technology Center, but possibly at The Ridges or Clippinger Laboratories instead.
“It’s a rare bird worth saving, but it will take a lot of work,” Allseits said. “The mount really should never have gotten lost.”
bc822010@ohiou.edu
