Page 21 - The Hunt - Winter 2023/24

dome housing its first research telescope, a 24-inch (0.6-meter) Tinsley reflector.
On this evening, Lancaster begins a tour of the facility on the entry level at its circular center, a hallway that wraps around a large, central pedestal for the Tinsley on the floor above. Its walls are covered with dozens of photos of the blinking universe. “The pier supports the telescope,” Lancaster says. “But note that there’s a very small space between it and the floor. It’s not connected to the building, so it won’t get any vibrations from activity in the building.”
Off the circular corridor are various rooms, including one for students from the University of Delaware. Their professor, Judith Provencal, is resident astronomer at the observatory. Mount Cuba also hosts the Whole Earth Telescope research project, an international network of astronomers who collaborate on the study of variable stars. A small classroom with a domed ceiling serves as a planetarium where images from the sky can be projected,
Mount Cuba was founded in 1958 by a group of local scientists who cited as their inspiration Dover native Annie Jump Cannon, a groundbreaking astronomer in the first half of the last century.
though none originate directly from the telescopes. There’s also a cluttered workshop where amateur telescopes can be constructed or repaired. Up a narrow stairway is a door to the outside and a flat roof connecting two of the three domes. “This is where they bring the public on clear nights to observe using smaller telescopes,” Lancaster says.
He opens the door to a second dome over the classroom planetarium, which contains the 4.5-inch DuPont refractor telescope built in 1887 and donated to Mount Cuba in the 1970s. “A refractor telescope has a lens, while a reflector telescope uses mirrors,” notes Lancaster.
Separated from the main building is a new 52-inch (1.3-meter) reflector telescope that will greatly increase the facility’s research capacity. “The installation is about two years late because of the pandemic,” says Greg Weaver, Mount Cuba’s manager, adding that it will be open by the end of 2023.
Unlike the primary telescopes at Mount
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