EASTON, Maine — Visitors to the Francis Malcolm Science Center will soon be able to travel to faraway planets and galaxies all without leaving Earth.
The Science Center now features a 20- by 24-foot wide and 16-foot tall observatory with a 20-inch Dobsonian telescope and 24-foot-wide roll top roof. The observatory is the first of its kind to be available to the public in Aroostook County.
In 2020 Connor St. Peter, now a graduate of the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone, designed the observatory as a Boy Scout project to achieve his Eagle Scout rank. St. Peter, a native of Kenduskeag, supervised the building of the observatory, which was completed this past summer by volunteers and Science Center board members.
On Friday, St. Peter returned to Easton to show the telescope to board members and other volunteers involved with the project. Though rainy weather prevented the group from rolling out the roof and looking through the telescope, St. Peter said he is excited for the day when he can help show the instrument to others in the community.
As a student, St. Peter visited the private observatory of Mars Hill resident Roger Libby, whose telescope provided the inspiration for the new observatory. He hopes that the telescope will inspire other young people to learn about the night skies.
“I want people who come here to find the same inspiration I felt in the astronomy classes with Mr. Berz,” St. Peter said, referring to MSSM instructor and Science Center planetarium director Larry Berz. “As soon as I looked into [Libby’s telescope] I was hooked.”
The telescope, nicknamed Goliath and donated by Caribou native Gary Nadeau and his wife Linda, currently features a small computer monitor used to manually guide and align the telescope.
By spring 2022, the Science Center board hopes to obtain funding for two larger computer systems that will automatically position the telescope and produce stronger images to display on two large screens inside the observatory.
“That will give us high resolution videos and photos that people can see even when they’re not looking into the telescope,” Berz said.
In the meantime, the Science Center plans to set up observatory visits with local schools and hold events for the public to view the night skies through Goliath. Folks who wish to visit the observatory privately can contact the Center at 488-5451 or info@francismalcolmsciencecenter.com.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like until you actually look through [the telescope],” said Jim Orser, president of the Science Center board. “It brings everything into a whole new magnitude.”
EASTON, Maine — November 12, 2021 — The Francis Malcolm Science Center is now home to the first public telescope observatory in Aroostook County. (Melissa Lizotte | The Star Herald)
