Stellar Finds

Dyer Observatory is a unique parcel of the Vanderbilt University campus due to its seclusion at the peak of Brentwood ridge. The site is made even more special by being entirely surrounded by the verdant Radnor Lake State Natural Area. A… Read More

Tennessee’s Wells Creek impact basin, located about an hour and a half drive northwest of Nashville, is the source of this shatter cone. It was formed by the shock wave of a meteorite impact massive enough to travel through underlying rock in a… Read More

Occasionally, Nashville residents are lucky enough to see a comet pass in the night sky. In August 1957, Comet Mrkos, named for the Czechoslovakian astronomer Antonín Mrkos who discovered it, was visible for a few weeks to the naked eye. It was dubbed… Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Dyer Observatory owes its existence to this 24″ fuzed-quartz disk, which unbeknownst to many first-time visitors to the observatory, is actually an uncoated (no reflective layer) telescope mirror. Vanderbilt University’s acquisition of this mirror, formally known as the Ferguson fused-quartz disk, began around June 1943. The… Read More

Image Credit: ESO Up until the early 1920s, astronomers questioned one of the fundamental aspects of astronomy that we take for granted today: Is the Milky Way the entire universe or just a small part of it? By the start of the 20th century, astrophotography techniques were beginning to… Read More

On a spring day in May of 2009, then graduate student (now Dyer Observatory astronomer) Billy Teets entered the dome housing Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory’s DeWitt Telescope to retrieve a tool left from work done earlier in the year.  An unexplained feeling told him that he should look within… Read More

On nights when a bright moon is seen through passing cirrostratus clouds, one might have the opportunity to witness a moon halo, just like the one above captured by Dyer Observatory’s All-Sky camera.  The halo measures 22° from the… Read More

Did you witness the great solar eclipse of March 7, 1970? Totality crossed Florida and skirted up the United States’ eastern seaboard, but a partial eclipse was visible across the contiguous forty-eight states. In Nashville, the partial eclipse began at 11:04 am… Read More

When entering Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory, one of the first things noticed is the large display case in the front lobby.  Behind its glass, you will find artifacts dating back to the 1870s that reflect the history of astronomy at Vanderbilt University, including Vanderbilt’s Dyer Observatory.  The majority of… Read More

At the heart of Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory is the 24″ Seyfert Telescope.  Installed in 1953, thousands of visitors peek through it annually at our various public events.  The Seyfert Telescope, however, is not oldest telescope telescope still used at Dyer Observatory.  In the 1930s,… Read More