Guarding Against Destruction of the night sky

Sharing Space Astronomy

Astronomy for Wellington, New Zealand, and the World

from the official Gifford Observatory website:

"Uncle Charlie" - Charles Gifford, with a soft "G" as in George - was an eminent and much loved Wellingtonian, who in the first three decades of the 20th century inspired thousands of the pupils he taught at Wellington College with his knowledge and love of astronomy. In addition, over several decades he regularly contributed astronomical articles to the "Evening Post" newspaper. He was also a notable mathematician, whose work was influential in establishing that the craters on the moon were due to meteoritic impact.

Gifford's enthusiasm and commitment ensured that an observatory was built mostly through voluntary labour and donated materials, and was shifted to its current site from its original site (now occupied by Wellington East Girls' College) in 1924. It is located between Wellington College (Dufferin St.), the Town Belt and Government House on land jointly occupied in trust by Wellington College and Wellington East Girls' College.

The Observatory housed an excellent 130mm diameter Zeiss refractor telescope with ancillary instrumentation including an astrograph (a specialised wide-field astronomical camera), photographic developing equipment, a protuberance spectroscope (an instrument used to observe solar flares) and equipment designed for observing sunspots.

It is remarkable that so much of the original instrumentation has remained largely intact given the thousands of pupils that have had access to the building and equipment over the years.

Gifford Observatory


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All about Gifford Observatory here:

http://www.gifford-observatory.wellington.net.nz/