Class Portrait

Every year at the Antique Telescope Society Convention, we do a "class portrait."  This the portrait for this year, at the Goodsell Observatory.  What I want you to see is not so much the class, but the observatory.  It is an absolutely beautiful building.  The cornerstone was laid in 1886.  The first instrument installed was something called a Meridian circle.  It was used to observe stars as they crossed the meridian, and from that they could calculate the exact time.  The observatory would then sell this time service to both jewelry stores, and more importantly, the railroads. Obviously railroads need to know the exact time so that their trains would not collide.  This time service supported the observatory for years. Here is a photograph of the Meridian circle telescope.  There is a slit that opens in the ceiling of the room above the telescope so the telescope can see the sky.