Expansion Looms for University's Observatory in Rocky Mountains

Topping Saturday's report that the Bausch and Lomb optical firm had given its 17-foot telescope to the University Observatory at Climax, Colorado, came news yesterday that the Climax Observatory would become a joint venture of both Harvard and the University of Colorado through a certificate of incorporation filed under Colorado law recently.

Relocation and enlargement of the highest observation station on this planet-11,500 feet above sea level-and the only coronagraph in the western hemisphere are in line, according to a story in the Alumni Bulletin which remarked that "at Climax the air is clear and washed free of the dust and grime of the low-lands" and said sarcastically, "Cambridge is much the same!"

The new institution, revealed the Bulletin, will be known as the High Altitude Observatory of Harvard University and the University of Colorado, and will be expanded and operated under the direction of a scientific committee including Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory, Donald H. Menzel, professor of Astrophysics and manager of the Freemont Pass Station, and Walter Orr Noberts, resident superintendent of the station.

Said to be in an ideal mountain atmosphere, the Observatory, established in 1940, worked during the war on research activity vital to naval radio communications throughout the world, though this work has until now been of a highly confidential character. With an annual budget estimated at $50,000, the station will now "assume a greatly increased role in solar research and other phases of astronomy which can be done best at high altitudes."