University of Denver Spring 2024

50 Reasons to Love DU

WE REACH FOR THE STARS AND SKIES # 21 Built in 1894, the Chamberlain Observatory, with its 20-inch Clark Saegmuller refractor telescope, has permitted students, faculty and astronomers to gaze at celestial bodies for more than a century. Home to the Denver Astrological Society since 1945, biweekly public nights offer amateurs and experts alike a chance to peer into the night sky. Long before the James C. Kennedy Mountain Campus became a part of DU’s footprint, the Mount Blue Sky Field Station (formerly the Mount Evans Field Station) was the original campus in the mountains, dating as far back as 1937. Historical physics research and theories, including a better understanding of the universe and cosmic radiation, were developed there—not only by DU but also by visiting universities including the University of Chicago, Cornell, MIT, NYU, Princeton and the University of Michigan. In 2017, the field station was recognized as part of the American Physical Society Historic Sites Initiative. Still operated by DU, the facility is available year-round for use by academic groups and individual researchers interested in the geology or ecology of the Front Range.