The Chamberlin Observatory: Denver Landmark with a Telescope

If you are fortunate enough to live in the Denver, Colorado area, you know that there are several great planetariums in the region. One of the most famous, the Gates Planetarium, is located in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The "up-side" of this planetarium is that it has some incredible exhibits and films that will be enjoyed by the whole family. The "down-side" is that it always seems to be crowded, and you pretty much have to make a reservation ahead of time, which really does a number on the old "spontaneity factor"!

On the other hand, there is a little known planetarium located near the University of Denver campus where you can drop in and have a great evening looking at the stars. At the Chamberlin Observatory on Tuesday and Thursday "public nights", the night begins with a presentation given by one of the observatory volunteers, which lasts about 30 minutes and discusses many aspects of the solar system, various galaxies and constellations, and other astronomical information. Also included in the presentation are a number of photographs taken by members of the Denver Astronomy Society at their "Dark Site" location near Deer Trail, Colorado.

An online reservation system keeps the crowd on any given night to a minimum of 35 people. As only about 20 people can go up to the observatory at one time, the crowd is usually split in half, with one half going up to the observatory and the other half (when weather permits), going out on the back lawn to look through various sized telescopes, usually trained on the dominant object in the sky on that evening. On the evening that we visited the observatory, the telescopes were all focused on Saturn. It was amazing to see the level of detail that could be seen through such a small telescope.

The observatory is fascinating, although our visit was particularly fascinating because a malfunction in the dome that evening resulted in the volunteers having to manually keep the observatory roof lined up with the moving telescope! The dome of the observatory houses a 20 inch Clark-Saegmuller refractor telescope from 1894. While you are waiting for your turn to climb the ladder and look through this telescope, you can wander around and look at the interesting photographs, taken in the early 1900's, that line the walls of the observatory room. These were quite interesting, particularly the ones of the total eclipse in 1918.

The Chamberlin Observatory may not be a state-of-the-art observatory with all the latest in equipment, but an evening at this landmark observatory will leave you and your children with stories and memories to last a lifetime.

Sources:

The Chamberlin Observatory Virtual Site: http://mysite.du.edu/~rstencel/Chamberlin/

The Denver Astronomical Society's University of Denver Chamberlin Observatory webpage: http://www.denverastrosociety.org/chamberlin.html