Robinson Observatory

The Robinson Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of Central Florida College of Sciences in Orlando, Florida, USA.[1]

Robinson Observatory
OrganizationUniversity of Central Florida
College of Sciences
LocationOrlando, FL, United States
Coordinates28°35′30″N 81°11′26″W
Established1995
Websitephysics.ucf.edu/observatory.php
Telescopes
Primary telescopeRCOS Ritchey-Chrétien 20-inch reflector
Secondary telescopeMeade LX200 14-inch reflector
Portable telescopeMeade LX200 8-inch reflector
Portable telescopeMeade LX90 8-inch reflector (6)
Location of Robinson Observatory

Public viewings are held the first and third Wednesday of each month and are sponsored by the Central Florida Astronomical Society (CFAS).[2]

History

The observatory was built at a cost of over $500,000 in 1995, with Herbert Robinson donating almost half of the total cost. The observatory was given the name Robinson posthumously, eight months after Herbert Robinson's death, on April 25, 1996.[3]

In the 2000s, a number of updates and renovations were completed at the observatory. The most recent addition was in 2007; it included high speed internet, a new 20-inch (50 cm) Ritchey-Chrétien telescope, and the ability to remotely operate the telescope and dome.[4]

Future

Plans are under way to expand the Robinson Observatory to include two smaller telescopes with domes donated by the United States Air Force.

gollark: That's later.
gollark: You would also want some sort of telescope array, so you can more accurately view the Andromedans to generate a more targeted insult.
gollark: I'm not sure if it's particularly *possible* that they could eventually somehow end up doing general-intelligence stuff well, but it might be interesting as a story.
gollark: We already have neural networks optimizing parameters for other neural networks, and machine learning systems are able to beat humans at quite a few tasks already with what's arguably blind pattern-matching.
gollark: One interesting (story-wise) path AI could go down is that we continue with what seems to be the current strategy - blindly evolving stuff without a huge amount of intentional design - and eventually reach human-or-better performance on a lot of tasks (including somewhat general-intelligency ones), while working utterly incomprehensibly to humans.I was going to say this after the very short discussion about ad revenue maximizers but left this half written and forgot.

See also

References

  1. "Robinson Observatory". UCF. Archived from the original on 2009-02-28. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  2. "Robinson Observatory". Central Florida Astronomical Society (CFAS). October 3, 2007. Archived from the original on November 5, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  3. "History - UCF Planetary Sciences Group". University of Central Florida Department of Physics. Retrieved 2009-06-10.
  4. "The Robinson Observatory Upgrade". CFAS. September 11, 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-05-18. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
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