8
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, February 20, 1968
Lens ground in swimming pool
You can expect that a telescope with a lens ground in a swimming pool is used occasionally to watch girls.
The 27-inch diameter lens on KU's 39-year-old telescope was ground by William Pitt of Kansas City in 1929 in his basement laboratory which used to be his family's swimming pool.
But astronomy students in the class taught by N. Wyman Storer, KU professor of astrology, have problems when they try to focus on Lewis or Hashinge. residence halls. One problem is that all the coeds appear upside down because of the arrangement of the lenses.
The telescope is used successfully to watch other kinds of "birds," however. KU ornithology students use the telescope to count migratory birds at night, using the bright surface of the moon as a background.
The reflecting telescope, the largest in the midwest states north of Texas, was conceived in the mind of Dinsmoor Alter, who was a KU professor of astronomy until 1935.
KU students in engineering
designed and built the mechanical parts of the telescope.
Although nearly completed in 1929, the fall of the stock market led to a lack of funds for finishing the construction of the instrument.
In 1953 the telescope was installed permanently in the present observatory on the roof of Lindley Hall.
A six-inch lens telescope used by astronomy classes has an equally interesting history, Storer said.
Built in Cambridge, Mass., in 1885, it has been used by KU students since then with little deterioration. First used on the lawn of Blake Hall, then installed in an observatory between Haworth and Marvin Halls, it finally was installed next to the larger telescope in the Lindley Hall observatory.
The 225 students in Storer's Astronomy 12 class don't have weekly lab sessions in which to use the telescopes because there are no lab assistants and the class is too big, Storer said. They will each have a chance to become acquainted with the use of
the instruments at the beginning of the semester, however.
The telescopes are also used by graduate students for research, Storer said.
Kennedy to answer questions at speech
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy will answer questions at the conclusion of his Wednesday afternoon address in the University of Kansas' Allen Field House.
WEAVERS RECORD DEPT.
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The questions must be in writing and be submitted to the Chancellor's Office by 11 a.m. Wednesday or given to an usher at the east entrance to the Field House prior to the speech.
THURSDAY—FEB.29
FRIDAY—MARCH 1
SATURDAY—MARCH 2
8:00 p.m.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
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AUDITORIUM
The term Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday in French.
. N. Wyman Storer, professor of astronomy, knows what you are, and where, and why . . .
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