Conn dedicates new telescope
The stars got a little brighter for the Connecticut College community during Reunion weekend. On May 29, the Department of Physics, Astronomy and Geophysics held a ceremony in the F.W. Olin Science Center to officially open its new telescope, which arrived last year, and dedicate it to Associate Professor Emeritus of Physics Leslie Brown.
Department Chair and Associate Professor of Physics Michael Seifert gave opening remarks honoring Brown, who retired from the faculty in 2022 after 30 years, as she stood beside him. Brown continues to be involved on campus, teaching occasional independent studies and helping students with research projects. Seifert said Brown was “the heart and soul of the astronomy program at Conn over the three decades that followed” her hiring in 1992.
“Leslie worked hard to share her love of astronomy with the College community and with the community at large. For many years, she ran astronomy open houses here at Olin, where the campus and community were invited to look at the night sky and hear talks about fascinating astronomical phenomena. It's been estimated that several thousand people came over the years.”
Brown was also instrumental in upgrading Conn’s telescopes over the past three decades. When she arrived on campus, she was greeted atop Bill Hall by a “woefully outdated” Clark refracting telescope from 1881 that couldn’t keep up with the field’s revolutionary digital technologies, Seifert said. When Olin was built in 1995, Brown won an $85,000 National Science Foundation grant, equivalent to about $200,000 today, to purchase and install a 20-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain reflecting telescope that provided faculty and students with 30 years of astronomical views.
As of 2025, Olin is home to a smaller but more powerful 14-inch Corrected Dall-Kirkham telescope courtesy of an anonymous $100,000 donation from one of Brown’s former students. At the ceremony, Seifert christened the gift the Leslie F. Brown Telescope “in recognition of the invaluable work she has done for Connecticut College over her career.”
Brown offered thanks to those who helped her start Conn’s astronomy program, including Professors Emeritus of Physics David Fenton, Michael Monce and Thomas Ammirati, as well as the students who benefited. “We’ve had the most amazing group of students come through our doors, and we’ve been very blessed to have them,” she said.
She acknowledged the program’s present and future, saying, “We’ve got great new faculty in the department who are really committed to the astronomy program and to keeping observational opportunities open for students, our campus and the larger public, which is the best you can ask for in retirement.”
The observatory was open to Reunion attendees the following night, allowing visitors to use the Leslie F. Brown Telescope and other telescopes, and participate in related activities in Olin. An open house for the public is planned for Fall Weekend, which will take place Oct. 9 and 10, 2026.
