Whitin Observatory

Whitin Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Wellesley College. Built in 1900, with additions in 1906, 1967, and 2010-2011, it is located in Wellesley, Massachusetts and named after Wellesley College trustee Mrs. John Crane Whitin (Sarah Elizabeth Whitin) of Whitinsville, who donated the funds for the observatory. Astronomer Sarah Frances Whiting was the first director of the new Wellesley College Astronomy Department.

The facilities include a 24-inch Boller and Chivens reflector with a CCD and retrofitted with a DFM control system, a 12" Fitz/Clark refractor, a 6" Alvan Clark refractor, a Hale Spectrohelioscope, and six Meade 8" SCTs.

In 1896, Wellesley College physics professor Sarah Frances Whiting met trustee Sarah Elizabeth Whitin at a traditional college ceremony, "Float Night." The conversation turned to a 12" refracting telescope Whiting had used that was being offered for sale, and as told in Wellesley College 1875-1975: A Century of Women:

In the fall of 1898 she proposed to give, and the Trustees "voted to accept with gratitude," "a 12" telescope and a simple building to house the instrument." Then at a Trustees meeting the following May, "Mrs. Whitin stated that she now proposes to construct the Observatory of white marble in place of brick." When it was formally opened on October 8, 1900, Miss Hazard could report that it housed "a 12" refractor with micrometer, polarizing photometer, and star and sun spectroscopes. A Rowland concave grating spectroscope, of 6' focus, with its accompanying heliostat, is set up in a room capable of being darkened completely. The library is a beautiful room, and the dome by Warner and Swasey is all that it should be.

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