Sacred space

Yesterday I went down to Georgetown, to give a talk for the annual Vatican Observatory Foundation seminar. Before the talks, we got a tour of the old Georgetown astronomical observatory, which might be the oldest observatories in the US still in its original location and with its vintage equipment. (The Mt. Holyoke telescope is from 1881 which predates this scope from 1888, but this building is older).

The astronomy department was closed in 1972, one of my colleagues at the Observatory, Rich Boyle, SJ, was one of the last Ph.D.'s from that program.

Both building and telescope are in need of work: the dome moves, but not 360^o; the gears on the telescope mount are frozen (perhaps), so you can't change the angle of the scope; and the top of the stairwell, with no railing, is downright terrifying. But there is an active group of student astronomers who gather there, to see what can be seen past Washington DC's lights and to talk space and stars with each other. Given Crash Kid's experience at Georgetown working with the student theater group, I can see the same kind of enthusiasm in this group.

The observatory building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is surrounded by a conservation garden, replete with ponds and native flora and fauna, used by the biology department.

The photo to the left is of Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ, the current director of the Vatican Observatory. It looks to me like a set up for a 19th century painting (minus the camping chair!).

The evening went well, I enjoyed hearing Paul Mueller, SJ  talk about pastoral approaches to the perceived conflicts between science and religion, along with some background about the Catholic tradition vis a vis science. Both Paul and I quoted Thomas Aquinas. David Brown, SJ, talked about the collaboration between the Vatican Observatory and a group from Potsdam to get high resolution spectra of stars about which there may be planets. As he summed up his talk, "it's an exciting time to be an astronomer."