History of the MSU Telescope
Built by the Boller and Chivens Corporation,
the Michigan State
University telescope was
commissioned in 1969 and entered regular operation in 1970. In 1974, what was
at the time a state-of-the-art Raytheon Microcomputer was installed to function
as a data gathering and control system. Originally, single channel
photoelectric photometry and photography using plates or film were the means of
acquiring data. The observatory was closed from 1981 until 1986, at a time when
the university was having financial difficulties. It was reopened in the spring of 1986 on
the occasion of the return of Comet Halley and has been in regular operation
ever since. Since the 1980s, a CCD
camera has been employed as the main instrument and the Raytheon computer has
been retired.
This present campus observatory
is not the first to have been built on the MSU campus. In 1881, the then Michigan Agricultural
College built an observatory to house an Alvan Clark
& Sons refracting telescope of 5.5 inches aperture.