Leuschner Observatory

Leuschner Observatory

Named after	Armin Otto Leuschner
Organization	University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University
Observatory code	660
Location	Lafayette, California
Coordinates	37°55′10″N 122°09′14″W / 37.91934°N 122.15385°W / 37.91934; -122.15385[1]
Altitude	304 m (997 ft)[1]
Established	1886 (Berkeley), 1965 (Lafayette)
Website	Leuschner Observatory
Telescopes
30-inch Telescope Ritchey-Chrétien telescope 3.6-meter Radio Dish Gregorian
Location of Leuschner Observatory
[edit on Wikidata]

Leuschner Observatory, originally called the Students' Observatory, is an observatory jointly operated by the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. The observatory was built in 1886 on the Berkeley campus. For many years, it was directed by Armin Otto Leuschner, for whom the observatory was renamed in 1951. In 1965, it was relocated to its present home in Lafayette, California, approximately 10 miles (16 km) east of the Berkeley campus. In 2012, the physics and astronomy department of San Francisco State University became a partner.

Presently, Leuschner Observatory has two operating telescopes. One is a 30-inch (760 mm) optical telescope, equipped with a CCD for observations in visible light and an infrared detector used for infrared astronomy. The other is a 12-foot (3.7 m) radio dish used for an undergraduate radio astronomy course. The observatory has been used to perform professional astronomy research, such as orbit determination of small Solar System bodies in the early 1900s and supernova surveys in the 1980s and 1990s. It has also served as a primary tool in the education of graduate and undergraduate students at UC Berkeley.