Steward Observatory, 933 N. Cherry Ave., is the research arm of the UA Department of Astronomy.
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The University of Arizona campus has grown up around its first observatory, which is still used to show the night sky to guests of its public lecture series.
Steward Observatory was on the outskirts of the campus — and the city — when it was dedicated in 1923.
Astronomer Andrew Ellicott Douglass noted that it would be important to work with the City Council to control lighting nearby.
Douglass had come to the UA in 1906 after establishing Arizona’s first observatory for Percival Lowell in Flagstaff.
He worked with smaller telescopes in existing buildings until getting a grant — “the princely gift of $60,000” — from Lavinia Steward, who wanted the observatory to honor her late husband, Henry.
Henry got a lot more recognition than Lavinia ever bargained for.
Steward Observatory, the research arm of the UA Department of Astronomy, now encompasses a host of observatories at sites in Chile, the Antarctic and on most of Southern Arizona’s mountaintops.
It builds the world’s largest telescope mirrors at the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab on campus.
Douglass, in his dedication address, said he wanted the observatory to live and grow.
“From time to time, further equipment should be added in order to enlarge human knowledge,” he said.
He, too, got his wish — and then some.
