The stars are finally aligning for Ohio University astronomers.
Joe Shields, vice president for research and creative activity and dean of the Graduate College, has proposed OU build an observatory to house two telescopes on the former site of Building 26 at The Ridges.
The proposal, submitted Aug. 26, requests $300,000 to install “two telescope shelters (domes) and a small storage building.”
A modern reflecting telescope would be purchased, a cost not accounted for in Shields’ proposal, to accompany the 10-inch Fecker refractor telescope the university is currently repairing, the proposal said.
Shields said he did not know how much the second telescope would cost.
“The primary function of the campus observatory would be for teaching and for community outreach,” Shields said. “I think it would be a great resource to have a permanent facility for that purpose.”
Before the university moves forward with the proposal, Shields will work with the newly reformed Ridges Advisory Committee to judge whether the former site of Building 26, demolished in the spring, is feasible for the observatory, Laura Myers, interim chief of staff to Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit and Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding, said in an email.
Machinists in OU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy are currently putting together drawings for a new base of the Fecker refractor based on a similar telescope in Illinois. The plans will be put out to bid, as a foundry is required to remake the roughly 1,750 pound cast-iron base of the telescope, said David Ingram, chair of the department.
The university had a contractor scrap the base last November following a fire on the roof of the Research and Technology Building. The telescope had been removed by the time of the fire and is currently being stored in the basement of Clippinger Laboratories.
The cost for replacing the telescope’s base has yet to be determined, Ingram said. Regardless of cost, it will be covered by OU because it is a “self-insured loss,” according to a previous Post article.
“It’s not easy to find a foundry that can cast something as big as this,” Ingram said, adding the timeline for replacing the base is contingent on when his department can contract with a foundry.
Though there are still obstacles to getting the Fecker pointed toward the sky again, Ingram is pleased with the university’s current plans.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking we would probably want to do,” Ingram said of the observatory. “It’s just a case of having time do to these things.”
dd185710@ohiou.edu
@WillDrabold
