Page 20 - The Hunt - Winter 2023/24

MEMORANDUM
Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory near Greenville.
discuss what they’re working on,” says Lancaster, who teaches physics and computer sciences at Wilmington’s Concord High School.
Like the Widener University Observatory in Chester, Mount Cuba allows astronomy buffs and interested newbies to gaze into the heavens and learn more about the universe. It also serves as a research and educational hub for professional astronomers and a focal point
for groups like Lancaster’s. Not to be confused with the nearby
Mt. Cuba Center and its public gardens, the small but striking
facility sits on a tree-lined knoll just yards away from Hoopes
Reservoir, gleaming in white like a miniature Taj Mahal topped by three observatory domes. Slightly downhill is an additional, smaller compound with observatory domes manned by the BAS.
A nonprofit organization, 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. Mainly working at Harvard University, she invented the current star classification system, personally classifying more than 350,000 of them. The observatory was completed in 1964 with a central
18 THE HUNT MAGAZINE winter 2023-24
JIM GRAHAM