Observatory
Welcome
Calvin boasts access to two fully-equipped observatories, one on Calvin's campus and a robotically-operated telescope in Rehoboth, New Mexico. The central mission of the Calvin University Observatory is educational, and the telescopes are used by students at all levels from first year non-science majors to fourth year physics majors.
With our telescopes, we can see fascinating objects in space and capture them in photographs. See a sample of our photos in the adjacent gallery.
Announcements
April 2019: Calvin physics and astronomy student Michaela Blain was awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship. This continues a long record of Calvin astronomy students winning this prestigious scholarship (Chris Beaumont 2006 [honorable mention], Melissa Haegert 2008, Luke Leisman 2009). Additionally two other Calvin physics major have been awarded honorable mention (Jacob Lampen 2013, Jackson Ross 2018).
January Highlights
Along with the usual winter constellations, the highlight this January is five planets:
1) Dominating the evening sky is Jupiter, the largest planet, which shows its four large moons and colorful atmospheric belts through the telescope;
2) Nearby is Uranus, the first planet discovered with a telescope;
3) Rising in the East is Mars, just past its opposition and so the closest and brightest it will be all year;
4) Dominating the western sky at the beginning of the evening is Venus, which shows its crescent shape in the telescope;
5) And close by Venus is Saturn, which is rapidly approaching ring plane crossing. This is a once in 15 years event in which the rings are viewed edge on and so seem to disappear since they are orders of magnitude thinner vertically than horizontally.
