Associate professor of physics Mark Bottorff and his students have used the telescopes at Fountainwood Observatory for several published research projects.[/caption]

Located on the edge of Southwestern University’s campus, the Fountainwood Observatory has hosted more than 12,000 people since it opened in 1997, said Mark Bottorff, observatory director and Southwestern associate professor of physics.

The observatory, which is now home to two telescopes, has multiple purposes for its visitors.

Fountainwood hosts viewing nights during the school year, that Bottorff said usually bring between 100-150 people and are free to the public.

“Fountainwood is a wonderful science and education public outreach facility,” Bottorff said. “It is both geared for the public, and it is used to do actual scientific research.”

Its original telescope, a 16-inch diameter Meade telescope, was donated in 1997 by Max Allen and is housed in a large silver dome. The second, a 16-inch DFM telescope, came to Southwestern in 2002 with money from a National Science Foundation grant. It is used more frequently for research purposes, and works with an SBIG 8300M electronic camera. The camera donated by Lex Shaw, a public night frequenter, projects images it sees on to TV screens, Bottorff said.

Bottorff, the Williamson County Astronomy Club and several of Bottorff’s undergraduate students team up to help lead the public nights that are typically held three to four times each semester, Bottorff said.

There is another viewing area with nine stations that allow for more and smaller telescopes to be used. Bottorff said on clear nights there is greater visibility of celestial objects.

Not only can the public learn about and experience astronomy first-hand, but they also have the chance to look through the same telescopes on which Bottorff and his students and colleagues are conducting research, Bottorff said.

Bottorff and his students have used the newer telescope to conduct research, mostly about supermassive black holes, for two projects and are currently involved in a third, he said.

One research project completed in 2016 was led by a professor from Ohio State University who was granted permission to use the Hubble Space Telescope for 180 days, Bottorff said.

Bottorff and his students spent every possible clear night collecting data, not starting until it was dark and often ending around 3 a.m., he said.

Bottorff said Fountainwood is an asset to Southwestern because it allows undergraduate students to get real research experience.

“The members of a small college observatory, through great effort and determination, have been able to run with the big-dog research universities and contribute to the most important and continuing challenges of 21st-century astrophysics,” Bottorff said during a lecture series at Southwestern.