Custer Observatory facts for kids

Installation of new dome (2007)[1]

The Custer Observatory is a special place where people can look at the stars and planets. It's an observatory owned and run by the Custer Institute. You can find it in Southold, New York, in the United States. It faces Peconic Bay and Shelter Island, which means it has some of the darkest skies on Long Island, perfect for stargazing!

Custer Institute is the oldest public observatory on Long Island. It was started in 1927 by Charles Wesley Elmer and a group of friends who loved looking at the stars. Charles Elmer was also one of the people who helped create the Perkin-Elmer Optical Company. The observatory was named Custer to honor Mrs. Elmer, who was the grand niece of General George Armstrong Custer. In 1942, the Custer Institute became a non-profit organization, meaning it's dedicated to education and not making money.

The group bought the land for the observatory in 1938, and the first buildings were finished in 1939. A large room for lectures, which can hold 100 people, was added in 1945. Later, in 1947, a three-story tower with a library and the main observatory dome were built thanks to donations from Charles Elmer and Mr. Polk. After Charles Elmer passed away in 1954, the Institute added a shed. This shed holds three observatories with roofs that slide open, letting telescopes point straight up at the sky.

Over the years, Custer has collected many different telescopes of all sizes. One of the newest and most impressive is a 10-inch Zerochromat refracting telescope. It's the largest of its kind in the United States and is located in the main observatory dome.

This 10-inch refracting telescope was made in England by Zerochromat Telescopes. It was designed by a famous optician named Peter Wise. This telescope has special lenses that make images super clear, showing amazing details of planets, moons, and faraway galaxies. Even though it's more than 6 feet long, it uses mirrors to fold the light path, making it fit inside the dome.

The telescope sits on a computer-controlled mount called a Fornax 152. This mount helps aim the telescope easily and keeps it pointed at objects as they move across the sky. The whole setup can be moved up or down, so people of different heights can comfortably look through the eyepiece.

Before this, the main dome housed a large 25-inch (f/5) Obsession Newtonian reflector telescope. To make it easier for everyone to use, an engineer named Justine Haupt from Brookhaven National Lab changed its optics. She made it so observers wouldn't need a tall ladder to reach the eyepiece. Justine is also working on the camera for the LSST, a huge project to map the night sky.

Custer Library

The Custer Library is a treasure chest of books about astronomy and science. It has books from the 1800s all the way up to today. You can also find old videotapes and 35mm slides of astronomical images. The library has many old issues of popular science magazines like National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, and Scientific American, some going back decades! If you become a member of the Custer Institute, you can use their library.

Custer Museum

The Custer Institute Museum, though not currently open, has a fascinating collection of items. Here are some of the cool things you'd find there:

• A grinding table used by Henry Fitz, an early Custer member and a famous maker of telescope mirrors. There's a similar one at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
• A special telescope from around 1750, made by James Short. It's a type of Gregorian telescope designed to measure the distance between binary stars (two stars orbiting each other). Only three of these are known to exist!
• Other old tools from the 1700s and 1800s, like spectrometers (used to study light) and sextants (used for navigation).
• The Custer Rock Collection, which includes cool geodes and many fossilized rocks.
• The Custer Meteorite Collection, featuring a piece of a Shergottite that actually came from Mars!
• Lots of amazing pictures of space, sunspots, and the aurora (northern and southern lights) taken by past and present members.
• A broken roadside mile marker from the 1750s. These markers were first ordered by Ben Franklin when he was in charge of the mail system in the colonies.
• The Custer Civil War Bullet Collection.
• A piece of a tree that was planted by Albert Einstein himself at Bronx College. Einstein often spent his summers in Jamesport, New York.

Telescopes

Custer Observatory has a very large collection of telescopes. They come in all shapes and sizes. Here are just a few of them:

• 25-inch Obsession Newtonian reflector
• 20-inch Obsession Newtonian reflector
• 14-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain
• 14-inch Meade LX200GPS-SMT
• 13-inch Newtonian dobsonian
• 12½-inch Newtonian reflector
• 12-inch Springfield telescope
• 10-inch Astro-binoculars, designed by one of the observatory members, Rico Verticchio
• 9¼-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain
• 8-inch Cave Astrola Cassegrain
• 7-inch f/20 refractor
• 6-inch Ceravolo Maksutov Newtonian
• 6-inch f/10 Eichner refractor
• 6-inch Alvan Clark refractor
• 5-inch Alvan Clark student model refractor
• 4½-inch James Short Gregorian Reflector (from the mid-1700s)
• 4-inch Unitron refractor
• 3.5-inch Bausch & Lomb refractor
• 80mm Jaegers refractor
• 2.4-inch brass refractor

Public Access

The Custer Institute is usually open every Saturday evening, from when it gets dark until midnight. The Custer Observatory welcomes everyone to come for guided tours of the night sky, as long as the weather is clear. The Custer Institute also lets its lecture hall be used for talks, classes for teachers, concerts, plays, and other fun events.

Images for kids

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  Messier object 42 by K. Massey, Custer Institute

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  Messier object 27 by K. Massey

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  Custer Observatory - Night Sky, Dome and Radio Telescope

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  Custer Observatory - Radio Telescope and Jupiter