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.