Washburn Observatory is back in public service

For the past 120 years, the Washburn Observatory has been open to the public twice each month. However, the aging equipment that operates the observatory broke down last fall, causing a short interruption in this long tradition.

The Department of Astronomy‘s Jim Lattis says these public nights were an innovation of Washburn’s second director, Edward S. Holden, who in 1881 was looking for a way he could get undisturbed periods of observation. As a consolation to the interested public, Holden offered the first and third Wednesdays of each month as an opportunity to view celestial objects.

This tradition was back on track in June when the motor that operates the opening of the observatory dome was repaired.

“It’s a remarkable thing,” says Lattis. “I keep maintaining that it’s the oldest, continuous astronomy outreach program in the world.”

Lattis also is the director of UW Space Place, the astronomy department’s contribution to UW–Madison’s Outreach in Education Program. Operating for 10 years, UW Space Place serves as an educational facility for the community.

But it all started at Washburn.

Throughout its long tenure on campus, the observatory has witnessed many important contributions to the field of astronomy while serving a number of other miscellaneous functions.

The observatory first helped to elevate UW–Madison’s academic status. “In those days, a great university needed to have an observatory,” Lattis says. “To not have one would be like not having a library.”

The university regents concurred with this way of thinking, as did Wisconsin’s governor at the time, Cadwallader C. Washburn, who agreed to provide a fully equipped observatory for the campus.

The structure, resembling a squat silo protruding from a house, was built in 1878. Originally surrounded by orchards and a vineyard, the observatory is now flanked by a child care center, Agricultural Hall and Observatory Drive.

Washburn’s telescope is a refractor with a 15.6-inch aperture, about half an inch larger than Harvard’s telescope in 1878. This made UW–Madison’s refractor the third largest in the nation at the time.

Lattis says that half-inch was important because Washburn wanted to give the university some national distinction.

Innovations and major achievements in astronomy made by Washburn astronomers over time continued this trend of increasing distinction. Such accomplishments include pioneering phototelectric astronomy, a measurement of our galaxy that was widely accepted for five decades, construction of the payload for the first orbiting astronomical observatory, and manufacture of a High Speed Photometer for the Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomy aside, the observatory also served as a timekeeper in the past. The observatory controlled local time by setting clocks in various Madison buildings, including the state Supreme Court, the Western Union Office and the Wisconsin State Journal. The observatory also controlled the bell that indicated the beginning and end of class periods.

Although the telescope still works perfectly, it is obsolete today, Lattis says.

“As a category, telescopes have a very long lifetime,” Lattis says. “[The telescope] is like an old clock in that it will still keep time up to the standards of when it was made, but the standards have changed.”

Consequently, Washburn is primarily used for educational purposes. “Public nights are an important educational opportunity for the general public,” Lattis says. “[The observatory’s] main goal is education.”