On our way home from Alabama we stopped at the Cincinnati Observatory for a short tour.

The Cincinnati Astronomical Society was founded by astronomer Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel in 1842. He raised nearly $7500 in $25 shares to bring the optical elements for a telescope from Munich, Bavaria (now Germany). Although the Cincinnati Observatory relocated in 1873 (farther from the city centre to escape the coal smoke), the original telescope remains in daily use, the oldest large telescope in the United States.

The day was partly cloudy, but it cleared up enough that we were able to look through the finderscope at the sun (which looked like a white circle with a tiny black dot — a sunspot).

In 1904 the observatory purchased a second telescope for research. It’s neat to see how the domes of the two buildings are opened to observe the sky.

The observatory also had an interesting exhibit on eclipses. I enjoyed reading about an expedition to Dakota Territory to observe the solar eclipse of August 7, 1869.

“Visit an observatory” was on my list for 2024; next I hope to visit one at night!