U of MN Telescope Tour TODOTC.com To Do in the Twin Cities Miscellaneous U of MN Telescope Tour Date: Oct 6, 2023 John T. Tate Hall Room B50, 116 Church St SE,Minneapolis, MN 55455 Phone: (9 cse.umn.edu/mifa/public-events/public-observing

Tour the U of MN telescope

Every Friday Night during the school year, the U of MN Mpls campus opens their Telescope for free public Viewing. There is also an astronomy presentation by U of MN students before the event.

We heard about this last year but needed to wait for classes to start again and a clear night. Well we didn't end up with a clear night but we went anyway.

First of all if you want the website with information here it is https://cse.umn.edu/mifa/public-events/public-observing We had a Friday night kinda free and thought we'd go. We went to a new place to wine taste, this time we went to 1010 Washington Liquors for a very good tasting.

Then we parked at Church St Parking lot 80 Church St SE Mpls 55455 on the U for $10. We walked a block off campus to Canes Chicken then walked back to the SUV and a block further to the John T Tate Hall Astronomy building Room B50. It was all nice & close.
 
The biggest hurdle we had all evening was finding room B50 but one of the students directed us. B50 is a lecture hall for about 300 people. There was about ten of us that night.

Each of the Astronomy students have to run the event once a year. We had three students presenters. Their presentation that night was on Black Holes. It was good, something a twelve year old could understand. There was a kid in the audience about half that age.

No reservations are needed its FREE and they could accommodated 300 more people. After the ten minute presentation and questions about Black Holes we took the group upstairs to the Telescope.

First you need to understand the telescope hasn't been used for about fifty years. And the telescope itself is about 150 years old. It is too old to get parts so if something breaks it will stay that way. The telescope is inside a moveable dome on the top of the building. The inside of the dome could probably accommodate 100 people, we had room.

The students then did a 5-10 minute presentation of the telescope and the dome and explained with all the light pollution in Mpls the astronomists at the UofMN currently log onto a telescope in Arizona for better viewing. 

But that allowed us to be able to move the dome and telescope at our whim. It was kinda cloudy the night we went outside though you could see the North Star & Big Dipper outside we did not look through the telescope. But it was interesting.

After the telescope we were lead to the top of the building with a great view of Mpls and some star watching limited with the clouds.

If you are expecting to look at Nebula and far off things, that wont happen. You can see the rings of Saturn on a good night. That is what we amateur astronomers can see from home with a $100 telescope.

That said it is an interesting tour & Evening.

Contact us Dennis@ToDoTC.com