The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is reopening its observatory this month after being closed for over a decade.
Greg Guisbiers, Associate Professor of Physics at UA Little Rock, said interest in restoring the space peaked during preparations for the total solar eclipse last April.
He says the school purchased an 11-inch telescope for the event, along with several smaller ones.
"Renovation was done last summer with a bunch of students and some faculty members. Then we got the support from the provost to get a new floor, new painting and everything, and then we put the new telescope inside the dome.”
Guisbiers said the observatory's copper dome has an interesting history. It first belonged to Frederick Allsopp, the business manager of the Arkansas Gazette newspaper.
"His wife was really passionate about astronomy. They had a home on Hillcrest in Little Rock, and then in 1930 decided to extend his house by adding an observatory just for his wife," Guisbiers explained. "On the ground level he had his personal library, but on the roof, he put the dome, where his wife could enjoy looking at the stars.”
The dome is 2.5 tons of copper, and when the house was sold, the buyer donated it to UA Little Rock where it was utilized until a little over a decade ago.
Senior physics major Matthew Burningham says that having the observatory back up and running will provide a much-needed boost to the school’s astronomy program.
"You know, it's not Webb. It's not going to do groundbreaking things that nobody's ever seen before, but the point of it is to get students to see some of these things in reality rather than just images of them, and get excited about that, and want to understand and experience more how that works. The telescope has the ability to do that, to be that first step”
Burningham says he’s hoping to schedule plenty of observations in the newly renovated location, including viewing opportunities for the public whenever significant astronomical events happen in this neck of the galaxy.
"You never need to sell dinosaurs or space. Everybody wants to know about that so as long as you can attach an event to something like that, you will get widespread appeal, and it wont just be the handful of people who want to chase those deeper scientific mysteries. Everybody shows up for space!”
UA Little Rock will officially celebrate the dome’s reopening during a public event on March 31, 2025, at 1:30 PM.
