The Leitner Family Observatory is located in Farnham Memorial Gardens near the corner of Edwards and Prospect Streets in New Haven (map to the observatory).
The facility has two Ash
domes which contain a 12" LX200 Meade
telescope and a refurbished Grubb
refractor that was originally purchased by the astronomy
department to observe the 1882 transit of Venus. The 12" telescope
can be controlled remotely from a warm room or over the internet. We
have several detectors that can be used with the 12" telescope,
include an SBIG ST-9E CCD camera and a DSS-7 spectrograph.
Between the domes there is an observing deck with permanent piers for four 8" telescopes.
The primary use of the observatory is undergraduate research and
education. The facilities are used for astronomy classes at Yale
College, such as Astronomy
155 and 255.
The observatory is also used for public outreach events, and it is open to the public on
the first and third Thursday of the month, weather permitting. The
interior space of the main building is being developed as a lecture
hall and museum, and artifacts reflecting the history of the Yale
astronomy departmenet are currrently on display.
LFO is also frequently used by STARRY, the Yale
undergraduate astronomy club, which meets at the observatory on the
2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month.
For more information, please contact the observatory director,
Michael Faison
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