A Century of Astronomy at The Ohio State University: 1896-2000

Ohio State has a long tradition of astronomy, reaching back over 100 years to the McMillin Observatory founded in 1896. In this genteel age, the astronomers were was part of the College of Engineering, which felt the need for a practical course in astronomy for civil engineers. Endowed by Emerson McMillin, the observatory was located on the OSU Campus in Columbus, and equipped with a 12.5-inch Brashear refracting telescope with a mount built by Warner & Swasey. It was, for the time, the largest research telescope in Ohio.Instrumentation included a Brashear spectroscope. In the hands of the first astronomer, mathematics professor Henry Curwin Lord, the Brashear spectrograph measured radial velocities to a precision of +/-2 km/sec. An interesting History of the McMillin Observatory has been written by OSU alumnus Carl Wenning (now a lecturer in astronomy in the Physics Dept. at Illinois State University).

In 1931, Ohio Wesleyan University completed the construction of the Perkins Observatory with its 69-inch reflecting telescope, but the pressure of the Depression made it clear that they would need assistance operating it as a scientific facility. At the same time, the McMillin telescope ceased to be useful as a research facility, given its small size and location in the middle of the growing city of Columbus. Perkins, located some 23 miles north of Columbus near Delaware Ohio, was relatively free of light pollution, and its 69-inch telescope (then among the 5 largest in the world), offered vastly greater light-gathering power. This began a long partnership in astronomy between Ohio State and Ohio Wesleyan.

As the science of Astronomy became transformed into Astrophysics in the early part of the 20th century, the OSU Trustees decided to transfer the astronomy program to the Department of Physics in the College of the Arts & Sciences. The astronomy faculty was part of the Physics Department for 30 years from 1931 until 1961, when Astronomy was formally constituted as a separate department. We moved to our present quarters above the Physics Department in Smith Laboratory in 1968 when the aging McMillin Hall was no longer habitable. McMillin was finally condemned and demolished in 1976.

By 1961, light pollution in the Columbus area finally caught up with Perkins, reducing its usefulness as a serious observing site. It was decided to move the 69-inch telescope to a dark-sky site operated by the Lowell Observatory on Anderson Mesa near Flagstaff Arizona, at the same time installing a 72-inch mirror obtained from the National Bureau of Standards. This three-way consortium of OWU, Lowell, and OSU has operated the Perkins Telescope for the last 36 years, with OSU contributing the state-of-the-art optical and infrared instrumentation that has helped to make the 72-inch a remarkably productive research instrument. The old Perkins Observatory in Delaware has since acquired a 31-inch reflecting telescope, and has undertaken a leading role as a center for public education in astronomy in central Ohio.

Recognizing the need for modern astronomical facilities that would be available to all US astronomers (not just those at elite private institutions), Ohio State joined with 6 other universities in 1957 to found AURA, the Associate of Universities for Research in Astronomy. AURA has since grown into one of the premier astronomical observatory systems in the world, responsible for operating the Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatories, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the Gemini International Observatories on behalf of the US astronomical community.

In August 1998, we formally ended our 37-year old partnership with Ohio Wesleyan and Lowell, and became partners in the MDM Observatory on Kitt Peak. While OSU no longer provides the primary financial support for the Perkins Observatory in Delaware, we will still continue our close traditional ties with this institution, and are actively assisting them with their new educational mission. Our New Vistas lecture series and other, less formal public programs by OSU astronomers will continue uninterrupted into the foreseeable future.

Looking to the 21st century, we are focusing our efforts on the MDM and LBT observatories in Arizona. The combination of these two complementary facilities provides our faculty, postdocs, and students with outstanding research tools for the future. In Summer 1999 we moved from Smith Lab into expanded quarters in the renovated McPherson Lab, which provides our Imaging Sciences Laboratory with the large shops necessary for constructing large instruments for the LBT.