Badlands Observatory

In the small town of Quinn, South Dakota, just a few miles from Badlands National Park, the privately run Badlands Observatory has spent two decades hunting asteroids and hosting stargazers under some of the darkest skies in the American Midwest.

About Badlands Observatory

Badlands Observatory, assigned the IAU observatory code 918, is owned and run by American amateur astronomer Ron Dyvig alongside Teresa Hofer, from a converted former medical facility in Quinn, South Dakota. When the observatory opened, the town of Quinn itself installed hoods over its street lights to help protect the site's dark skies.

History

Dyvig founded the observatory in 2000, drawing on experience gained at the University of Arizona's Optical Sciences Center and Steward Observatory, including observing runs at Kitt Peak. For more than a decade, the observatory contributed asteroid-tracking data to the Minor Planet Center's Near-Earth Object mapping efforts.

Telescopes & research

The observatory's main instrument is a 26-inch Newtonian reflector telescope. By November 2016, observations from Badlands Observatory had led to the discovery of 25 numbered minor planets, credited to Dyvig and the observatory; one of them, asteroid 26715 South Dakota, is named after the state. A separate main-belt asteroid was also discovered in 2008 by an Italian astronomer operating the observatory's telescope remotely over the internet.

Location & getting there

Quinn sits in western South Dakota, close to Badlands National Park and the town of Wall - open, sparsely populated country with some of the clearest night skies in the United States.

Visiting Badlands Observatory

Ron and Teresa offer reservation-only daytime tours year-round, weather permitting, using solar-filtered telescopes; tours run around 90 minutes and cost about $10 per person for ages 10 and up. On clear nights they also run stargazing sessions, setting up as many as nine telescopes on the observatory's deck to view star clusters, nebulae, galaxies and planets, alongside a small museum covering Dyvig's asteroid-hunting work.

See your named star from here

A visit to Badlands Observatory is a genuine chance to see your own night sky discovery: bring the coordinates of a named star from the Star Register catalogue, and Ron and Teresa's telescopes can help you track it down.