Best Known Refracting Telescope Observatory

Kirkwood Observatory is just one refracting telescope observatory of the many refracting observatories throughout the United States and all over the world.

Part of the campus of Indiana University, it is located near the corner of Indiana St. and 4th Avenue in Indianapolis and contains a 12 inch refracting telescope. This refracting telescope observatory is primarily used by undergraduate students in their study of astronomy, although it is open to the public for viewing once a week after dark for six months of each year.

Perhaps the best-known refracting telescope observatory is that of the US Naval Observatory, also known as USNO.

This 26-inch refracting space telescope observatory is in our nation's capitol and is open to the public each Monday night. What a history this refracting observatory has! Built in 1873 it was, for the first decade, the largest refracting observatory in the world. Alvan Clark & Sons from Cambridgeport MA made the lens and the mounting.

The original Washington DC site of this famous observatory was in the Foggy Bottom section of the city. There in 1877, Asaph Hall, a noted astronomer, made the discovery that Mars had two moons, naming them Deimos and Phobos.

In 1893, when they moved this refracting telescope observatory to its present larger location the phenomenal 26 inch telescope got a new dome and a new mount, both designed by Cleveland Ohio's Warner & Swasey Company. The innovation for observation through this telescope was an elevator, still the biggest in DC that took observers up to the eyepiece for a look at the stars.