Category of Astronomical Heritage: tangible immovable
Boyden Observatory, Bloemfontein, South Africa

Description

Geographical position

Boyden Observatory, Mazelspoort, Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa

Location

Latitude 29°02’19.79’’ S, Longitude 26°24’17.0’’ E, Elevation 1,372m above mean sea level.

IAU observatory code

074

Description of (scientific/cultural/natural) heritage

Fig. 1a. Boyden Observatory, an observing station of Harvard College University, founded in 1927, the dome of the 60-inch telescope to the right (2005), (assa.saao.ac.za)

Fig. 1b. Boyden Observatory, Dome of the 60-inch-Reflector (assa.saao.ac.za)

Already in 1908, the elevated plateau was discovered and David Gill reported to the director of Harvard; it was investigated during an expedition by Solon Irving Bailey (1854--1931) for site testing.

Harvard College University founded the Boyden Station in 1889 at Mount Harvard near Lima, Peru, later relocated to Arequipa, Peru, in 1890 (IAU code 800). The station was named after the sponsor Uriah Atherton Boyden (1804--1879), American engineer and inventor from Massachusetts (Boyden Water Turbine), who in 1879 bequeathed in his will 238,000 dollars to Harvard Observatory for astronomical purposes. Highlights of the activitites were the discovery of Phoebe, an outer moon of Saturn, by William Henry Pickering using photographic plates captured with the 61-cm (24-inch) Bruce Astrograph.

Fig. 2. Uriah Atherton Boyden (1804--1879) (Wikipedia)

In 1927, Boyden Station was moved to South Africa due to better weather conditions and was renamed as the Boyden Observatory.
The Boyden Observatory is situated 26 km east of the city of Bloemfontein in South Africa. In 1933, the instrumentation was ready with the 150-cm-Reflector, 61-cm-Bruce Astrograph, 33-cm-Clark-Refractor, and the 25-cm-Metcalf Photographic Triplet Refractor. The Bruce Astrograph was replaced by a 90-cm-Baker-Schmidt Telescope in 1950 (ADH).

Boyden Observatory is an astrophysical observatory, based on the 1.5 meter reflector. In 1938, the Dwarf Galaxy in the constellation Furnace was discovered. In addition, in the 1930s, Harlow Shapley discovered a supercluster of galaxies was detected, called the Shapley Supercluster (SSC).
The research activities are photographic and photoelectric observations of stars, variable stars, and starfields in the southern Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds. In addition, spectrographic studies were carried out, especially with the Jena Universal grating spectrograph. A sky patrol programme is made for the southern hemisphere like in Harvard for the northern hemisphere. In 1966, in this observatory four asteroids and the three comets were discovered: 57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte (1941), 66P/du Toit (1944) and 79P/du Toit-Hartley (1945).

Since 1955, Boyden operated under international management Council (USA, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Germany, and Sweden) until 1976, then it was taken over by the University of the Free State (UFS). Already in 1968, a chair for astronomy was established. New research fields were flare star investigation, interferometer observations, and the study of planetary and stellar atmospheres, extended up to the infrared region.

Wolfgang Strohmeier (1913--2004), the director of the Dr.-Remeis Observatory in Bamberg, Germany, used Boyden Observatory intensively with his own 6-camera year-around all-sky photographic patrol of variable stars (ten Aero Ektar cameras, aperture 10cm, focal length 61cm) from 1963 to 1972; the observer was Rüdiger Knigge. Bamberg had in addition observing stations in San Miguel Observatory, Argentina, and Mount John, New Zealand.

Other sky patrol projects were conducted by Harvard Observatory with three 3-colour Samon cameras, 1969 to 1972. Tom Rackham of Armagh with David Andrews used the ADH to search for flare stars in the Southern Coalsack.

Highlights -- Scientific Output of Boyden Observatory

The Boyden International Council is the first International Observatory in the world. The ESO is a direct consequence thereof.
Harvard Computers like Anna Winlock (1857--1904), Louisa Winlock, Mary Anna Palmer Draper (1839--1914), Williamina Fleming (1857--1911), Antonia Maury (1866--1952) -- all working with Boyden plates.
The work of Annie Jump Cannon (1863--1941) cataloguing the spectra of 350,000 stars and thus finding the seven spectral types.
The Henry Draper Catalogue (HD) presents spectroscopic classifications for 225,300 stars, published between 1918 and 1924.
The completion of the Henry Draper Catalogue, expanded by the Henry Draper Extension (HDE, 1925--1936) and by the Henry Draper Extension Charts (HDEC, 1937--1949),
finally classified 359,083 stellar spectra (2017).
First Photographic Atlas was partially taken from Boyden Observatory (1903).
First atlas of the Great Magellanic Cloud was taken from Boyden by Paul Hodge in 1958.

History

$33-cm-Refractor, Alvan Clark of Cambridgeport, Mas$

Fig. 3a. 33-cm-Refractor, Alvan Clark of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts (1889)

Fig. 3b. 90-cm (35-inch) Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard (ADH) Telescope, a Baker-Schmidt telescope, Perkin-Elmer (1949) (photo: Armagh Observatory)

Fig. 3c. 152-cm (60-inch) Cassegrain Reflector, made by Andrew Ainslie Common of Ealing near London (1890), later improved and new mirror (1968)

Instruments

25-cm (10-inch) Metcalf Photographic Triplet Refractor (focal length 124cm), built by Joel Hastings Metcalf (1866--1925).
33-cm (13-inch) Refractor (focal length 482cm), Alvan Clark of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts (1887/89) with an 8-inch refractor,
first used in Mt. Wilson in 1889, in Arequipa from 1890 to 1927, in Boyden since 1927. The Alvan Clark objective was reversible for either photographic or visual work.
61-cm (24-inch) Bruce Astrograph, Alvan Clark & Sons of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts (1893), Katherine Bruce donated 50,000 dollars.
The Bruce Astrograph was first used in Arequipa, since 1927 in Boyden in a building with a roll-off roof.
Photographs taken with the Bruce Astrograph at Boyden Station, Arequipa, were used by Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868--1921) for finding the "Period-Luminosity Law" (1912). Harlow Shapley (1885--1972) discovered with the Bruce Astrograph Sculptor and Fornax, the first dwarf galaxies.
7.5-cm (3-inch) Ross-Fecker Camera (focal length 53cm)
Three 4.2-cm (1.64-inch) Damon Patrol Cameras (focal length 35cm)
90-cm (35-inch) Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard (ADH) Telescope (focal length 303cm), a Baker-Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope
(90cm spherical mirror, 43cm spherical secondary, 80cm correction plate), built by Perkin-Elmer (1949/1950 to 1981)
on the mounting of the Bruce Astrograph,
with an objective lens prism (3°10’), 84cm diameter, dispersion 240 Å/mm at H-gamma.
today mirrors and lens in Dunsink, Dublin (Butler, 2007)
36/42-cm (14-inch) Hamburg-Schmidt Telescope (focal length 62.5cm, f/1.74),
with an objective lens prism (5°), dispersion 710 Å/mm at H-gamma.
152-cm (60-inch) Cassegrain Reflector (focal length 798cm, 1218cm), made by Andrew Ainslie Common (1841--1903) of Ealing near London (1890),
since 1904 in Harvard (Martinez et al., 1996). In 1933, the primary mirror was re-figured and in 1927 a new mount by J.W. Fecker of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was installed for the reflector in Boyden; it was then called the Rockefeller Reflector or the Boyden-UFS Telescope.
In the 1960s Heidenreich & Harbeck of Hamburg constructed a new mirror cell (Andrews 1998) and
a new 1.52-m (60-inch) mirror (Cassegrain optics) was made of low-expansion glass by Don Loomis, Custom Optics in Tucson, Arizona (1968).
Universal grating spectrograph, made by Carl Zeiss of Jena, dispersion 70 Å/mm.

The 1.5-m Reflector was the largest telescope in 1933 in the southern hemisphere, now it is the third-largest optical/infrared telescope in Africa
after the two 1.9-m-Reflectors in Sutherland and in Kottamia, Egypt, made by Grubb Parsons of Newcastle.
Laboratory instruments:
Askania Iris diaphragm photometer
Zeiss Blink Microscope
Pye Two-Dimensional Measuring Microscope
Joyce-Loebel Microdensitometer
20-cm-Coelostat Solar Telescope
40-cm (16-inch) Reflector, Watcher Robotic Telescope, developed by the University College Dublin and
the UFS for the visual spectrum observation following Gamma-ray bursts
41-cm (16-inch) Nishimura Reflector (focal length 220cm), made by Nishimura Co. Ltd. (2000, first light 2009),
used with a cooled photometer for UBV photometry.

Fig. 4. John Stefanos Paraskevopoulos (1889--1951), director of Boyden Observatory from 1927 to 1951 (Wikipedia)

Directors

John Stefanos Paraskevopoulos (1889--1951), director from 1927 to 1951 (PhD in Physics in 1910 in Athens, 2 years Yerkes, head of the astronomy department of the National Observatory of Athens, 1923 Superintendent of the Harvard Observatory’s Southern Station in Peru) --
Assistant Eric Mervyn Lindsay (1907--1974), 1934 to 1937
Donald Howard Menzel (1901--1976), acting director of Boyden, and acting director of the Harvard Observatory in 1952, full director from 1954 to 1966
International Boyden Council: Meeting in Uccle in 1955 (after informal talks in Hamburg in 1954)
Donald Menzel, Harvard (Boyden’s chairman), Otto Heckmann, Hamburg, A.H. Velghe, Uccle, Brussels, Belgium, Bertil Lindblad, Stockholm, Sweden, Eric Lindsay, Armagh, North Ireland, Michael J. Smith, Dunsink, Dublin, Ireland
Jean Dommanget, Uccle, Belgium -- temporary director, 1963 to 1965
International Boyden Council: Meeting in Bloemfontein in 1965
Donald Howard Menzel, Harvard (Boyden’s chairman), Eric Lindsay, Armagh, Patrick Wayman, Fred Whipple, SAO, Hans Haffner, Würzburg, Germany, van Hoff, Leuven, Belgium
David Andrews, Armagh, acting director / superintendent, 1965 to 1967
Alan Hamer Jarrett (1925--2007), 1968 to 1989

State of preservation

For Boyden Observatory a few million were spent to upgrade all the buildings, including the 60-inch dome.

Fig. 5. Restoration of the Boyden 60-inch-dome (Boyden Observatory)

Comparison with related/similar sites

no information available

Threats or potential threats

no threats

Present use

Boyden Observatory is since 1976 managed by the Physics Department of the University of the Free State (UFS) after Harvard stopped its support in 1975. Boyden Observatory is an astronomical research institute, and also a Science Education Centre.

The Friends of Boyden and the members of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA) Bloemfontein Centre, the amateur astronomy club of the city, assist the observatory in organising public events and star gazing nights.

In Bloemfontein on Naval Hill South Africa’s first digital planetarium can be found -- inside the original dome of the Lamont-Hussey observatory.
In addition, in Boyden Observatory a Museum and a Science Center were developed. About 15,000 school children a year were received at Boyden and the Naval Hill Planetarium.

Fig. 6. Children stargazing at the 13-inch at Boyden Observatory (Boyden Observatory)

Astronomical relevance today

Boyden Observatory is an astronomical research institute. In addition, there is a Science Education Centre.

Fig. 5. The Astrophysics Research Group in the UFS Department of Physics recently collaborated with the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA) in Spain and the University College of Dublin (UCD) in Ireland, to install a robotic telescope at the Boyden Observatory. Pictured here, are from the bottom, Teboho Rakotsoana and Simon Rakotsoana from the UFS; Emilio J. Garcia from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia; Prof Pieter Meintjes, and Prof Antonio M. Carrillo from UCD (UFS)

References

Bibliography (books and published articles)

Andrews, A.D.: The Boyden Observatory. In: Irish Astronomical Journal. 25 (1998), 2, p. 129, Bibcode:1998IrAJ...25..129A
Baily, Solon: The Arequipa Station of the Harvard Observatory. In: Popular Science Monthly 64 (April 1904), p. 513.
Bailey, Solon I.: Comparison of Cloudiness at Arequipa and Bloemfontein. In: Harvard College Observatory Bulletin 866 (1929), p. 13, Bibcode:1929BHarO.866...13B
Butler, C. John: The Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard Telescope: From dream to oblivion. In: Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 10 (2007), 3, p. 173, Bibcode:2007JAHH...10..173B
Martinez, Peter; Fouché, M.; Kilkenny, D. & W. Koorts: An Assessment of the 1,5-m Rockefeller Telescope at Boyden Observatory. In: Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of South Africa 55 (1996), p. 167, Bibcode:1996MNSSA..55..167F
Heffner, H.: The Boyden Observatory. In: Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of South Africa. 15 (1956), p. 47.
Jarret, A.H.: Boyden Observatory (A Concise History). University of the Free State. http://www.uovs.ac.za/faculties/content.php?id=4364&FCode=04&DCode=113&DivCode=D015. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
Jarrett, A.H.: Recent Developments in Astronomy at Bloemfontein. In: Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of South Africa 35 (1976), p. 112, Bibcode:1976MNSSA..35..112J
Metcalf, Joel H.: A Photographic Method for the Detection of Variability in Asteroids. In: The Astrophysical Journal 25 (1907), p. 264, Bibcode:1907ApJ....25..264M. doi:10.1086/141441