Fuertes Observatory, Ithaca

The Fuertes Observatory is located on Cornell’s north campus near Helen Newman Hall. It’s home to the Irving Porter Church Telescope and it can track objects in the sky using an original weight-driven clockdrive. This observatory is operated by the Cornell Department of Astronomy and holds public viewing nights every Friday from 8pm to midnight.

Believe it or not, the skies of Ithaca are dark enough that Cornell University has its own observatory, and my family and I were surprised by the many celestial bodies that we could see here during our visit. The Fuertes Observatory is open to the public every Friday night during the school year no matter the weather. During the evening open houses, tours of the historic observatory are given and, if the skies are clear, telescopes are set up to allow visitors to look into the cosmos. There is also a small museum in the observatory that offers a great look into the history of astronomy.

Fuertes Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on the North Campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The observatory was designed by L.P. Burnham, Cornell Professor of Architecture and completed in fall of 1917. It was originally used by the Civil Engineering Department as an instructional field office for navigation and surveying. Today, the observatory is primarily used for public outreach, welcoming over two thousand visitors per year with open houses on clear Friday nights. The facility is currently maintained by the Cornell Department of Astronomy, though open houses are routinely managed by the Cornell Astronomical Society, a group of Cornell undergraduate and graduate students. The observatory is named after the Puerto Rican-American astronomer and builder of Cornell's first observatory, Estevan Antonio Fuertes. The observatory contains a 12-inch refracting telescope with a weight-driven mechanical clock drive. The original glass blanks that were to become the optics were procured in 1919 by Prof. Irving P. Church, head of the Cornell Department of Civil Engineering; the two-element lens was ground and polished by the well-known firm of Brashear & Co. and delivered to Cornell in 1920. In January 1922, a contract was given to the Warner and Swasey Co. of Cleveland, Ohio to build the mount. On October 16, 1922, the telescope was erected upon its German equatorial mount in the central dome of the Fuertes Observatory. The observatory's original 4.5-inch telescope was mounted onto the 12-inch refractor, and currently serves as the finder scope. The observatory also contains several transit telescopes, zenith scopes, and other antique astronomical instruments used by Civil Engineers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for geodesy and timekeeping. These instruments are on display in a museum that occupies the east wing of the building. Fuertes is open to Cornell students and the general public every Friday night, hosted by the Cornell Astronomical Society. When clear, observing will take place from 8 PM until midnight. Tours of the observatory and its historic telescopes will be given regardless of the weather. During the academic year, a lecture or astronomy-related documentary is often presented before observing.

Fuertes Observatory was completed in 1917 with a dome capable of housing a 12-inch (0.3 m) equatorial refracting telescope; however, at the time, the University had yet to acquire such a telescope. Several small "transit" telescopes used for instruction in civil engineering and geodesy were installed on piers in the eastern wing of the observatory, while a 4 1/2" (0.11 m) equatorial telescope owned by the College of Civil Engineering was temporarily installed in place of the anticipated 12". It is believed that this 4 1/2" scope was piggybacked onto the main 12" instrument, and currently serves as its finderscope. The original mounting and clock drive for the 4 1/2" are still kept at Fuertes. ***PH***