Body
WHEREAS, Astronomy the oldest of the sciences, is education in its purest form, for astronomy exists only because people want to know and understand the universe that surrounds them; and
WHEREAS, the Allegheny Observatory was founded on February 15, 1859, in the City of Allegheny, by a group of wealthy industrialists called the Allegheny Telescope Association
; and
WHEREAS, in 1867 the facility was donated to the Western University of Pennsylvania , today's University of Pittsburgh ; and
WHEREAS, hired to be the first director of the Allegheny Observatory, Samuel Pierpont Langley used the telescope to study the sun, especially sunspots and heat from different parts of the solar spectrum; and
WHEREAS, the original observatory building was replaced by the current structure in Riverview Park, the cornerstone was laid in 1900 and completed in 1912, designed by Thorsten Billquist, the building consists of a library, lecture hall, classrooms, offices, and three domed telescope enclosures, two reserved for research and one for use by schools and the general public; and
WHEREAS, the primary instrument of the Allegheny Observatory is the 30 inch Thaw telescope, the third largest refractor in the US, constructed by the Brashear Company; and
WHEREAS, the second largest dome of the Allegheny Observatory houses the James E. Keeler Memorial Telescope, a reflecting telescope with a mirror 31 inches in diameter; and
WHEREAS, the main research at the Allegheny Observatory involves the detections of extra-solar planets through the use of photometry, the measurement of the brightness of stars; and
WHEREAS, the core of the building hous...
Click here for full text