Rose-Hulman Receives $120K for Observatory
The campus observatory will receive one new telescope in each of the next four years.
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Hollie and Anna Oakley Foundation Inc. has awarded a $120,000 grant to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology astronomy program. The grant will provide four new telescopes for the campus observatory.
The observatory will receive one 17-inch reflecting Corrected Dall-Kirkham telescope to replace older telescopes in each of the next four years. The new telescopes will be provided by PlaneWave Instruments.
“This gracious grant keeps our observatory on the leading edge of technology,” said Richard Ditteon, professor of physics and optical engineering and director of Rose-Hulman’s observatory. “These new telescopes, with bigger apertures and higher focal range, will greatly expand our students’ abilities to examine and research astronomical objects.”
The Terre Haute-based Oakley Foundation has provided previous grants to Rose-Hulman which helped established two observatories for the institute. The on-campus facility, with eight telescopes, was founded in 2000 and the institute established another observatory near the Australian outback in 2007 which can be remotely controlled from campus.
Both observatories are used by students for classroom, laboratory, special research projects and astronomy club activities.
