TIMELINE

(Note: The following key dates in astronomical history tie in with a dedication ceremony scheduled Saturday on Cerro Pachon, Chile, for the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research, in which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university, is a partner.)

1792 -- The university’s Board of Trustees hears an education plan that recommends acquiring equipment for experimental philosophy and astronomy, including an instrument to accurately measure angles between objects in the sky as well as a telescope. Although trustees accept the plan, they appropriate no funds for the equipment.

1823 -- Joseph Caldwell, the university’s first president, asks trustees for permission to buy astronomical equipment including a telescope. Trustees agree, authorizing $6,000 for both books and scientific equipment.

1824 -- Traveling in England, where instruments were cheaper, Caldwell buys an astronomical clock, a meridian transit telescope (used to determine longitude, latitude and local time), an alta-azimuth telescope and a portable 2.75-inch refractor telescope that Caldwell used to show objects to his students.

(In 1998, Professor Bruce Carney took the lens of the refracting telescope to Chile for a ground-breaking ceremony for SOAR. It normally is on display in the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center and also was flown by Dr. William Thornton, a UNC alumnus and NASA astronaut, in the Challenger Space Shuttle STS-8 in 1983. Some of the other items Caldwell bought, including two telescopes, are on display at the Morehead Center.)

1827-31 -- Caldwell and Carolina scientists make the first systematic astronomic observations in the United States.

1832 -- Under Caldwell’s direction, Carolina completes construction of the first astronomical observatory at a U.S. university.

1949 -- John Motley Morehead's philanthropy permits the university to build and open the Morehead Planetarium, the first such major facility to open on a college campus. More than 5 million people have visited the planetarium's Star Theater alone.

1959 -- U.S. astronauts including Donald "Deke" Slayton, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper begin receiving celestial navigation training at the Morehead Planetarium. Neil Armstrong was among astronauts to train at the Morehead in later years.

1969 -- The Morehead Planetarium is modernized with the installation of a Carl Zeiss Model VI projector.

1973 -- The university expands the name of the department of physics to the department of physics and astronomy in recognition of the increasingly important role of astronomy in the modern college curriculum.

1975 -- The John Motley Morehead Foundation presents the university with a new Morehead Observatory, marking the return of observational astronomy to the university. Instruments including a 24-inch telescope are housed in a 30-foot rotating dome. The observatory continues to serve as an educational and research facility.

1986 -- Carolina scientists begin to dream of collaboration with other universities and scientific organizations that could lead to a state-of-the-art telescope in Chile's Andes mountains.

April 17, 1998 -- Through private donations, federal defense funding and a partnership with Michigan State University, the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory and the Ministry of Science of Brazil, UNC representatives visit Cerro Pachon, Chile, to formally help break ground on SOAR -- the Southern Astrophysical Research telescope.

April 17, 2004 -- SOAR telescope officially dedicated.

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