Daniel S. Schanck Observatory

The Daniel S. Schanck Observatory is an historical astronomical observatory on the Queens Campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States, and is tied for the seventh oldest observatory in the US alongside the Vassar College Observatory. It is located on George Street near the corner with Hamilton Street, opposite the parking lot adjacent to Kirkpatrick Chapel, and to the northeast of Old Queens and Geology Hall.

The two-story observatory was designed by architect Willard Smith in the Roman Revival style and modeled after the Tower of the Winds in Athens, which dates from 50 BC. The cornerstone of the Observatory was placed in 1865 and construction was completed in 1866. It was named after New York City businessman Daniel S. Schanck, who donated a large portion of the funds to construct and equip the observatory. Outfitted with telescopes, clocks, and other scientific equipment donated to Rutgers, the Schanck Observatory served as the university's first building of science and was used to provide instruction to its students from the mid-nineteenth through the late-twentieth centuries.

As part of the Queens Campus, the Schanck Observatory was included on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.^[1] It was last used by the faculty to teach astronomy in 1979. The building was renovated in 2016 through a joint project of The Cap & Skull Society, an honors and service organization at Rutgers, and the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, and is jointly managed by them. The scientific centerpiece of the observatory, a 150-mm (6-inch) equatorial refractor telescope manufactured by Georges Prin of Paris and donated to Rutgers College by John Wyckoff Mettler in 1929, was restored to operation during 2016-2018 through the efforts of Rutgers alumni, friends of the university, and Rutgers' Department of Physics and Astronomy. Since the completion of the renovation of the building, alumni and volunteers have hosted daytime guided tours of the historic observatory and vintage telescope on special occasions, such as Rutgers Day.