Steward Observatory
| Organization | University of Arizona | ||||||||||
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| Code | 692 | ||||||||||
| Location | Tucson, Arizona | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 32°14′00″N 110°56′56″W / 32.2333°N 110.9490°WCoordinates: 32°14′00″N 110°56′56″W / 32.2333°N 110.9490°W | ||||||||||
| Altitude | 792 meters (2,598 ft) | ||||||||||
| Established | 1916 | ||||||||||
| Website | Steward Observatory | ||||||||||
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| Mount Graham | 10 m Submillimeter Telescope 1.8 m VATT 2 x 8.4 m Large Binocular Telescope |
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| Catalina Station | 1.6 m Kuiper Telescope 0.7 m Schmidt camera |
| Mount Lemmon | 1.5 m NASA Telescope 1.0 m telescope |
| Kitt Peak |
ARO 12m Radio Telescope 2.3 m Bok Telescope 1.8 m Spacewatch telescope 0.9 m Spacewatch telescope Super-LOTIS |
| Mount Hopkins | 6.5 m MMT |
Steward Observatory is the research arm of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona (UA). Its offices are located on the UA campus in Tucson, Arizona (USA). Established in 1916, the first telescope and building were formally dedicated on April 23, 1923. It now operates, or is a partner in telescopes at five mountain-top locations in Arizona, one in New Mexico, one in Hawaii, and one in Chile. It has provided instruments for three different space telescopes and numerous terrestrial ones. Steward also has one of the few facilities in the world that can cast and figure the very large primary mirrors used in telescopes built in the past decade.
Steward Observatory owes its existence to the efforts of American astronomer and dendrochronologist Andrew Ellicott Douglass. In 1906, Douglass accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Physics and Geography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Tucson, Douglass established astronomical research programs using an 8-inch refracting telescope on loan from the Harvard College Observatory and actively began to pursue funding to construct a large research-class telescope in Tucson. Over the next 10 years, all of Douglass’ efforts to secure funding from the University and the Arizona Territorial (and later State) Legislatures ended in failure. During this time period, Douglass served the University of Arizona as Head of the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Interim President, and finally Dean of the College of Letters, Arts, & Sciences.
Then on October 18, 1916, University President Rufus von KleinSmid announced that an anonymous donor had given the University $60,000 “…to be used to buy a telescope of huge size.” That donor was later revealed to be Mrs. Lavinia Steward of Oracle, Arizona. Mrs. Steward was a wealthy widow who had an interest in astronomy and a desire to memorialize her late husband, Mr. Henry Steward. Douglass made plans to use the Steward gift to construct a 36-inch diameter Newtonian reflecting telescope. The Warner & Swasey Company of Cleveland, Ohio was contracted to build the telescope, but the United States entry into World War I delayed the contract since Warner & Swayze had war contracts that took priority. The situation was further delayed by the fact that up until this time, the expertise in large telescope mirror making was in Europe. The war made it impossible to contract with a European company. So Douglass had to find an American glass company that was willing to develop this expertise. After a couple of failed castings, the Spencer Lens Co. of Buffalo, New York ultimately produced a 36-inch mirror for the Steward Telescope.
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