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The Perkins Telescope Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at Anderson Mesa Station, Arizona, a dark sky site roughly 14 miles south of the City of Flagstaff.\u00a0 Boston University owns and operates the Observatory, which includes the 1.83-meter-diameter Perkins Telescope and its associated facility instruments, Mimir<\/em> and PRISM.\u00a0 On-going research projects include a search for planets orbiting brown dwarfs<\/a>, long-term monitoring of active galactic nuclei<\/a>, asteroseismology of white dwarf stars<\/a>, mapping the magnetic field structure of the Milky Way<\/a>, and observations of the extended atmospheres of planets in our Solar System<\/a>.\u00a0 The observatory is also used for undergraduate and graduate courses by Boston University and our partner institutions.<\/p>\n The Perkins Telescope has a rich history of scientific discovery<\/a>.\u00a0 Originally built in Ohio by Ohio Wesleyan University, the telescope was moved to Arizona in 1961, where it was operated by Lowell Observatory.\u00a0 In the 1960s and 70s, it was used by Dr. Vera Rubin and Dr. Kent Ford in their ground-breaking work on the properties of dark matter<\/a>.\u00a0 In 1998, Boston University entered into a partnership with Lowell Observatory to operate the telescope and subsequently built two facility instruments. \u00a0In 2019 Boston University became the sole owner.\u00a0 The Five College Astronomy Department (Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mt. Holyoke College, Smith College and UMass Amherst), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and the University of Mississippi partner with Boston University for access to the Observatory.<\/p>\n