 Harvard College Observatory, circa 1899 | |
| Alternative names | HCO |
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| Organization | |
| Observatory code | 802 |
| Location | Cambridge, Massachusetts, US |
| Coordinates | 42°22′53″N71°07′42″W / 42.3815°N 71.1284°W /42.3815; -71.1284 |
| Altitude | 24 m (79 ft) |
| Established | 1839 |
| Website | www |
| Telescopes |
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  Location of Harvard College Observatory | |
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 Related media on Commons | |
TheHarvard College Observatory (HCO) is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used forastronomical research by theHarvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located inCambridge, Massachusetts,United States, and was founded in 1839. With theSmithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, it forms part of theCenter for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
HCO houses theHarvard Plate Stacks, a collection of approximately 600,000astronomical plates taken between the mid-1880s and 1989 (with a gap from 1953–1968).[1] This 100-year coverage is a unique resource for studying temporal variations in the universe. TheDigital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard project scanned and 429,274 direct image plates, leaving nearly 200,000 spectra and other photographic plates yet to be digitized.[2] In 2024, a new database, StarGlass, was created to combine the scientific data from the plates with the Plate Stack's archival holdings.
In 1839, the Harvard Corporation voted to appointWilliam Cranch Bond, a prominent Boston clockmaker, as "Astronomical Observer to the University" (at no salary). This marked the founding of the Harvard College Observatory. HCO's first telescope, the 15-inchGreat Refractor, was installed in 1847.[3] That telescope was the largest in the United States from installation until 1867.[4]
Between 1847 and 1852, Bond and pioneer photographerJohn Adams Whipple used theGreat Refractor telescope to produce images of the moon that are remarkable in their clarity of detail and aesthetic power. This was the largest telescope in North America at that time, and their images of the moon took the prize for technical excellence in photography at the 1851Great Exhibition atThe Crystal Palace inLondon. On the night of July 16–17, 1850, Whipple and Bond made the firstdaguerreotype of a star (Vega).
Harvard College Observatory is historically important to astronomy, as many women includingAnnie Jump Cannon,Henrietta Swan Leavitt,Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin,Williamina Fleming, andFlorence Cushman performed pivotalstellar classification research. Cannon, Leavitt and Cushman were hired initially as "computers" to perform calculations and examine stellar photographs, but later made insightful connections in their research.[5]
From 1898 to 1926, a series ofBulletins were issued containing many of the major discoveries of the period. These were then replaced byAnnouncement Cards which continued to be issued until 1952.
In 1908, the observatory published theHarvard Revised Photometry Catalogue, which gave rise to theHR star catalogue, now maintained by theYale University Observatory as theBright Star Catalogue.
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