Harvard College Observatory

Harvard College Observatory (HCO) has managed telescopes and astronomical research in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 1839, making it one of the oldest continuously operating observatories in the United States.

About Harvard College Observatory

HCO oversees a complex of buildings and instruments used by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. Together with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, it forms part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, sharing a campus and staff with its sister institution.

History

Founded in 1839, HCO built up one of the world's great archives of the night sky: the Harvard Plate Stacks, roughly 600,000 astronomical glass plates exposed between the mid-1880s and 1989 (with a gap from 1953 to 1968). The Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard (DASCH) project has since scanned 429,274 of these direct-image plates, and in 2024 a new database called StarGlass was launched to combine that scientific data with the Plate Stack's archival records.

Telescopes & research

The plate collection remains a unique scientific resource, giving researchers a century of photographic evidence for studying how stars and other objects change over time, something no modern survey alone can offer.

Location & getting there

The observatory sits at an elevation of about 24 metres in Cambridge, Massachusetts, close to the heart of the Harvard University campus.

Visiting Harvard College Observatory

Public astronomy nights in Cambridge are commonly organised by student groups such as the Student Astronomers at Harvard-Radcliffe, who are listed as an operator connected with the site; check current listings before planning a visit, as access to the historic buildings themselves is limited.

See your named star from here

A place with a century of star photographs on its shelves is a fitting spot to think about your own named star. Choose one through the naming packages or look it up in the star catalogue before your next clear Cambridge night.