Posted on Oct 18, 2002

The Doppelmayr Star Chart, from Dudley Observatory

The Mandeville Gallery at the Nott
Memorial is celebrating the sesquicentennial of the Dudley Observatory with an
exhibition titled “Reaching for the Stars — The Story of the Dudley
Observatory.”

The show, which runs through
December 22, is accompanied by a series of lectures, films and observing nights
at the Union College
telescope in the F.W. Olin
Center. All events are free and
open to the public.

Events open with a reception on
Sunday, Oct. 20, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the gallery. There will also be safe
solar observing, weather permitting, outside the Nott.

The exhibition traces the history
of the local astronomical institution from its ambitious beginning in Albany
in 1852 through its current endeavors in support of astronomy and astronomical
research. Objects range from telescopes to space dust collection devices as
well as photographs, paintings, prints, letters, maps and rare books.

The Sesquicentennial Lecture
Series will include three lectures on Sunday afternoons about the history of
the Dudley Observatory and astronomical breakthroughs during its time.  The first lecture, “Star Wars, Stellar
Motions and Space Dust: The Dudley Observatory 1852-2002” will be by George
Wise of the Observatory on Sunday, Oct. 27, at 2
p.m. in the Nott Memorial.

The film series portion of the
exhibition starts on Friday, Nov. 1, at 7:30
p.m. in the Olin Center Auditorium. Several films will be shown
including Powers of Ten, The Trouble with
Tribbles,
and Trials and
Tribble-ations
.

One of the oldest organizations in
the U.S.
dedicated to the support of astronomical research, the Dudley Observatory was
chartered by the state in 1852, largely funded by Blandina Dudley of Albany
in memory of her husband, Senator Charles E. Dudley.

In its first century, the
Observatory's astronomers made internationally important advances in astronomy
– charting the precise motions of stars and compiling influential catalogs of
the stars. In the 1950s, the Observatory turned to research in the area of
micrometeorites, tiny dust particles that continuously bombard the earth from
space. In the 1970s, the mission turned to the support of research in
astronomy, astrophysics and the history of astronomy. The Dudley
library contains one of the world's finest collections of historically
significant  texts, which are made
available to scholars studying the history of astronomy and astrophysics.
Locally, grants are awarded to schools and local communities to fund
educational programs, trips to planetariums and museums, scholarships to
Advanced Astronomy Camp and Advanced Space Camp, and radio and television
programming. On the national level, the Fullam and Pollack Awards fund
innovative research in astronomy and the history of astronomy.

For more information see
www.union.edu/gallery