What's New?

04/01/2024: Experience the Great American Solar Eclipse on our university campus! 

The Department of Physics and Astronomy and the MU Extension are hosting a solar eclipse viewing party on the campus. Join us at Lowry Mall between 12 and 4 p.m. on Monday, April 8th to witness this astronomical event. This is the last major eclipse passing through the US until 2045, so don't miss it! With telescopes on-site and safety glasses provided, you can gather with fellow astronomy enthusiasts and expert guides to enhance your understanding of the phenomenon, making it an educational and unforgettable morning under the open sky. Don't miss this chance to connect with the cosmos right here on campus!

For those who cannot come to our campus for the event: we will also be doing live streaming from the observatory through our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LawsObservatory/

11/10/2023: "Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster" - MU Astronomer Featured in NASA Press Release

     Prof. Haojing Yan was featured in a recent NASA press release: "Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster". The local Mizzou press release can be found here: Show Me Mizzou Story.

10/02/2023: Partial Solar Eclipse Viewing Party - October 14th, 2023

     Join us for a mesmerizing celestial experience at our university campus! The Department of Physics and Astronomy, MU Extension, and Division of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity together are hosting a partial solar eclipse viewing party on the campus. Join us at Lowry Mall between 10 AM and 1:30 PM on Saturday, 14th of October to witness this astronomical event. With telescopes on-site and safety glasses provided, you can gather with fellow astronomy enthusiasts and expert guides to enhance your understanding of the phenomenon, making it an educational and unforgettable morning under the open sky. Don't miss this chance to connect with the cosmos right here on campus!

     For those who cannot come to our campus for the event: we will also be doing live streaming from the observatory through our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LawsObservatory/.

09/09/2023: Light pollution reduced (at least once a month)

      Working with MizzouRec, we now have a working plan to reduce the light pollution from the stadium so that our visitors will have a better viewing experience: every first Wednesday night of the month, the field lights at Stankowski are to be turned off by 7:30pm, starting this semester. The pictures below (kindly provided by Val Germann) show how great the improvement is by comparing the night of August 30 (the lights were on) and that of September 6 (the lights were off).

       We greatly appreciate the MizzouRec team led by Stephen Byrd and the behind-the-scene supports from our A&S Dean Cooper Drury and Associate Dean Jamie Arndt  as well as those from Ron Boain (our distinguished alumnus).

11/29/2022: Preparing for the Lunar Occultation of Mars, December 7

      There will be an interesting astronomical event coming on December 7, lunar occultation of Mars: at around 9pm CST, the Moon will start blocking Mars, and after ~50 minutes Mars will reappear. This is a naked-eye event and everyone can see it (weather permits!). 

       On 11/30 (Wednesday) , there will be a public lecture on this event in Room 120, offered by Ron Boain. The lecture will be from 7:30 to 8:30pm. Everyone is welcome!

05/19/2021
This is not a news, but it brings up a piece of history of MU all the way back to its very early days. What shown below is a picture of the old G. Merz und Söhne (G. Merz and Sons) refracting telescope that once was the working horse at the Laws. It was made in 1847, with the objective lens of 7.5-inch in size (a very large refractor back then). It was first acquired by the Shelby College in Shelbyville, Kentucky in 1848. In 1880, MU acquired this telescope from Shelby (by exchange) under the effort of Joseph Ficklin (then at the post of Mathematics, Astronomy and Engineering) and Samuel Laws (then the MU president, who paid $500 out of his own pocket for this deal). The telescope was in use until the 1960's, and was then deserted. The original lens was taken out and kept in the observatory, and the structure was disassembled.

In 2011, this old piece was revived by a number of CMAA members, most notably Mike Boessen, Val Germann and his brother Farrell Germann, Monte Gurwit, and John Reed. The lens was replaced by an 8-inch, and the telescope is now at the site of the Wildhaven Observatory. Here is a nice story appeared at the Columbia Missourian in 2011.

For us, this telescope is of high historical significance for three reasons: (1) it was made by G. Merz und Söhne, the best telescope maker back in the mid-19th century; Gerog Mertz was trained by Joseph von Fraunhofer (yes, THAT Fraunhofer); (2) Frederick Seares, a famous astronomer who was a professor at MU for eight years (1901-1909), used this telescope (before he went to Mt. Wilson for the 60-inch) and gained the Laws Observatory an international recognition; (3) Harlow Shapley, when studying at MU (1907-1911), was an assistant to Seares and used this telescope.

12/21/2020
KOMU Channel 8 did a live streaming of the Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction this evening from 5:30 to 6:30pm at the observatory. Valentine Germann, Ronald Boian, Yicheng Guo, and Haojing Yan were on site for the event.

As the 16" was used for the streaming, no still pictures were taken from it during the event. We do have a picture taken the night before (12/20), as well as one taken by Eric Spurgeon (a CMAA member) using a telescope of similar design on 12/21.