The Willard L. Eccles Observatory (WEO) is a research grade telescope and is being used to follow up transient event astronomy. Donations from the Willard L. Eccles and the E.R. Dumke & E.W. Dumke Foundations have made the expansion of the department possible through the building of a new observatory.

WEO houses a 32-inch telescope from DFM Engineering. The scope is a Richey-Cretien design on an high precision equatorial fork mount. It uses an Apogee Alta U42 CCD camera and a full set of Sloan ugriz' filters as well as LRGB and narrowband HaSO filters. After assessing availability, accessibility, atmospheric stability and sky darkness, the first choice for the observatory's location is Frisco Peak near Milford in Southern Utah. Locations holding an elevation of approximately 9000 feet and higher have proven to be exceptional sites with seeing (an astronomer's gauge of atmospheric stability) of one arc second on average. They are ideally in a central location between two major sources of light pollution, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. Very dark skies are seen there with the Milky Way visible without much dark adaption at night. Limiting visual magnitude (naked eye) at the sites on a dark night may be upwards of 5.7 to 6.0 and SQM measurements of 22 mag/arcsec^2 are obtained on moonless nights.

The scope works also as an instrument for teaching new astronomy majors and astronomy graduate students in the astrophysics program at the university. Occasionally, we will run the telescope for public outreach. Be sure to follow our social media for updates for when.