As the college has built a new observatory on a hill near the edge of campus, the building is no longer used for astronomy. In 2008 it underwent a large restoration and renovation and now houses the offices of the education department and classrooms.
History
Maria Mitchell (seated) inside the dome of the Vassar College Observatory
Mitchell, the first manager of the observatory, focused primarily on observing planets and their satellites. She was an avid advocate for using the observatory as part of courses of study. Students could frequently be found using both the main telescope and any number of smaller instruments. In addition to serving as an educational and research facility, the original observatory also served as a home for Maria and her father during and after her tenure as professor.[citation needed]
Professor Mary W. Whitney assumed the directorship in 1888. She had been a student of Mitchell's. Whitney focused on comets and published in 1890, 1892 and 1895 in the Astronomical Journal.[citation needed]
It was noted in Popular Astronomy in 1904, "In general the work done at Vassar is similar to that done at several of the smaller German and Italian observatories."[citation needed]
The old observatory is no longer used for research. While the building still stands, the telescope has been removed and most of the building is used as office space. In the late 1990s, a new observatory was built on the Vassar College campus. The Class of '51 Observatory houses two telescopes; one 20-inch reflector used primarily for public outreach, and a 32-inch reflector used for teaching and research.[6] It is tied with the Austin-Fellows telescope of the Stull Observatory at Alfred University for being the 2nd-largest optical telescope in the state of New York, the largest being the 40-inch reflector at SUNY Oneonta College Observatory.
