Please note!! This web site is currently undergoing MAJOR revisions. Please check back in a few days for many more images and information.

Web Page Index:

  Weekly Star Parties and Access || Specifications || Images of the Observatory || Our Telescopes || Observatory Construction || Return to the Observatory Home Page || Return to the Ott Planetarium page.

Location: See our map page. 41N 11' 44.5" 111W 56' 22.0" (41.19569^o N, 111.93944^o W) NAD83 CONUS

What to wear: This is an OUTDOOR activity! Wear warm clothes! You will be standing around looking through telescopes and enjoying the night sky. It will be cold so you must prepare for it to have any fun. Hats, gloves, and heavy coats and pants will make for a much more enjoyable evening.

More information: Call the planetarium office at (801) 626-7907, no reservations are needed for the star parties.

IPS2002 Paper on the observatory: The planetarium director presented a paper on the design and construction of our observatory (453KB) at the International Planetarium Society conference in July, 2002. You can download and read it if you'd like. You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software to read the file. 

What can you expect to see: (This section is currently out of date and being revised!)

The Physics Department and the College of Science would like to welcome you to our new observatory. We have built this observatory specifically for public star parties and for research by our physics majors. Come join us for as many as three exciting evenings of star gazing (weather permitting) at the new Physics Department Observatory. One of the largest telescopes in Utah will be setup for your use. On any given night you might be able to see lunar craters, star clusters, galaxies, Saturn, Jupiter and some of the universe's best deep space splendors. Numerous telescopes will be setup by the Ott Planetarium and Observatory staff.

The Moon is a fantastic sight in a good telescope (or even in binoculars for that matter). But there are other things that we can expect to see too, such as planets, star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies.

You can expect to see clouds on the surface of Jupiter and its four moons. In fact, we will be able to see Jupiter's moons move through part of their orbits over the course the evening. 

Saturn is a spectacular sight when it is up. Even a modest telescope will show the rings and at least one of Saturn's eighteen moons (Titan). The larger telescopes will show six to eight of this planet's natural satellites. It is however the rings that are the most compelling part of the view. Many an amateur astronomer has taken up the hobby as a direct result of seeing the rings of Saturn.

One of the great treats of winter is the constellation of Orion, the Hunter. Even in binoculars and small telescopes the fuzzy spot in Orion's sword is an interesting sight. This faint smudge of light is a great cloud of dust and gas that is actively giving birth to new stars. It is one of the first places that the Hubble Space Telescope first obtained a direct visual view of the ring of dust that we expect young stars to have before planets form. To view the Orion Nebula in one of our large telescopes is akin to stepping into space and free floating in the universe. Twists of gas and dust surround thousands of newly forming stars in this active stellar nursery.

There are many clusters of stars that formed together and are slowly dispersing themselves into the greater whole of the Milky Way Galaxy. Several of these are in easy view during the winter months. The most obvious one is clearly visible to the unaided eye - the Pleiades or "Seven Sisters." Telescopes are not the best choice for either the Pleiades or the Hyades (an open cluster of stars in the face of Taurus the Bull). A good pair of binoculars will be the best choice. We will have a large pair of astronomical binoculars available to both of these star clusters. There are other clusters too some of which will be visible in the observatory's telescopes.

Of course, not all stars are at the beginning of their lives. In the year 1054 a star reached the end of its life and exploded. The remains can be seen as the Crab Nebula in the constellation of Taurus the Bull. "M1," as it is also known, is also the very first pulsar ever discovered. Its uniform radio pulses are so regular that we did not believe at first that it was a natural phenomena. The first name for M1 was "LGM" or "Little Green Man." This faint object will be on our viewing list for the larger telescopes.

Light that has been traveling for millions of years will be captured by our telescopes as we collect the light from distant galaxies. The Andromeda galaxy will be among those available for viewing. These graceful swaths of light are the collective output of hundreds of billions of stars in distant star cities that we call galaxies.

Many books and TV programs can give you a tour of the universe. Planetariums can surround you with images of the universe. But only your eyes, binoculars, and telescopes can bring the universe to you directly. Carefully maintained and operated telescopes, especially high quality ones, can give you a trip into the universe that has only been possible during the last half of this millennium. Even in the light polluted sky of Ogden, we can give you a view of the universe that you will not soon forget. Lets all hope for a cloudless sky on each of these three nights and please, come to Ogden's new observatory for your own tour of the universe, compliments of the Weber State University's Physics Department and Ott Planetarium.

Weekly Star Parties:

The observatory will be available for public access at 8:00 p.m. every Wednesday night during most of the academic year (September through March), weather permitting. The only exceptions are the Wednesday nights on Thanksgiving Eve and during spring break.

These 8:00 p.m. Wednesday night star parties are free of charge.

We can schedule special access to the observatory for individuals or groups. The cost is $40.00 per hour and you must schedule in advance. In the event of overcast sky your group can have the option of rescheduling or seeing a planetarium show as an emergency backup. We can also bring telescopes to your site. Call the planetarium for details and pricing which will include a $100.00 minimum fee based on distance, the number of hours, and number and type of telescopes needed.

Observatory Specifications and Equipment: (Click on the images for larger views.)

1. Main observatory building: precast concrete 12' X 20' X 10' (WXDXH) with workbenches and computer interfaces. Building has both white lights and dimmer controlled red observing lights.
2. Telescope pad: 1,040 ft² of concrete with AC power and data links for three telescopes. Two telescopes will have permanently mounted piers for easy setup. A third telescope will have alignment marks for rapid setup also.
3. The PAWS Telescope (Physics and Astronomy at Weber State) which is a twenty five inch diameter (12.5 foot focal length) Dobsonian telescope. This telescope has a computerized finder (Lumicon "Sky Vector II") with a data base of over 12,000 objects. The ladder that you need to climb to look into the eyepiece is 14 feet tall. This is among the largest telescopes in Utah. (Donated by Dr. Craig and LeAnn Gundy.)
4. Sixteen inch equatorial mounted and computerized Meade Starfinder telescope (over 274 pounds of telescope!). (Mount donated by Dr. Jack Cook.)
5. Twelve and a half inch Dobsonian telescope.
6. Eight inch Celestron Ultima Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. (Donated by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Nowak)
7. Eight inch Celestron Classic-8 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.
8. Solar filter for the Celestron telescopes.
9. Six inch refracting telescope. (On loan from Dr. John Sohl.)
10. Several six inch Newtonian telescopes.
11. Four inch Unitron refracting telescope. (This scope provides breath taking views of the moon and planets.) (On loan from Dr. John Sohl.)
12. A three inch refracting telescope.
13. Two CCD cameras and adapters for film cameras.
14. A radio telescope optimized for observing Jupiter's moon Io as it interacts with Jupiter's magnetic field. (Affiliated with NASA's Radio JOVE project.)

The equipment is rolled out as needed onto the observing deck which is a concrete pad with AC power and data connections to computers inside the observatory building.

 You can see the large scope (in a disassembled state) in these images. In the right image, is Ian trying to catch a falling star?

The Ogden Astronomical Society helped to collimate (align/adjust) the telescopes at their last meeting. I have a page of 7 images of the group working on the telescopes. Here is a sample image from that page showing Doug Say and Bob Neil working on the PAWS Telescope:

As of January 20, 2000 we now have most of the telescopes up and running. The observatory structure is nearly complete with only the roof covering remaining to be completed and the connection to power by UP&L.

The Ott Planetarium is sponsored by the Physics Department of Weber State University.

Go to the WSU Physics Department Homepage

Go to the Weber State University Homepage

Last Updated July 8, 2003... Number of visitors .
Any questions or comments may be addressed to: Webmaster or to the planetarium director.