Location Swarthmore, PA Organization Swarth College | Altitude 60 m | |
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Website www.cs.swarthmore.edu/program/history/sproul.html Sproul Telescope 24 in (61 cm) refractor telescope | ||
Sproul Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Swarthmore College. It is located in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States, and is named after William Cameron Sproul, the 27th Governor of Pennsylvania, who graduated from Swarthmore in 1891.
Contents
Tours
An open house is offered on the second Tuesday of the month by the Physics and Astronomy department
Directors
- John A. Miller (1923–1938)
- Peter van de Kamp (1937–1972)
- Wulff-Dieter Heintz (1973–1982)
- Sarah L. Lippincott (1982–)
Planetary discovery controversies
Under the direction of Peter van de Kamp this observatory made numerous claims of planetary systems and discoveries based on astrometry using the photographic plates made with the 24 in (61 cm) refractor telescope. These plates were found to have a systematic error that was misinterpreted as the effect of a planetary system on the parent star. This error was identified as early as 1973 and confirmed by the observatory in the 1980s.