Harvard College Observatory

Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1839, became a major center of astronomical observation, photography, and classification. Its 15-inch Great Refractor, installed in 1847, was once the largest telescope in the United States, and William Cranch Bond and John Adams Whipple used it to produce notable lunar photographs and the first daguerreotype of a star, Vega. The observatory also preserves the Harvard Plate Stacks, a vast archive of about 600,000 astronomical plates documenting changes in the sky over more than a century. It is closely linked to influential astronomers, including Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Williamina Fleming, and Florence Cushman.

Cambridge, Massachusetts · United States