As Doc Brown looks back to the future, Western University is preparing for this weekend’s 75th Anniversary celebrations of the Hume Cronyn Memorial Observatory.
Named for the late Hume Blake Cronyn (a prominent lawyer and politician in London, Ont. at the turn of the 20th century and the father of Academy Award-nominated actor Hume Cronyn), the observatory was presented to Western by his widow Francis Amelia Cronyn (née Labatt) in memory of her husband’s passing and opened its doors to the public on October 25th, 1940.
The Cronyn Observatory has long been a source of instruction and inspiration for students and faculty from Western’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, as well as members of the London community, and continues to provide stimulus for the work of the London Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
The anniversary weekend celebrations will include telescope viewings, a historical display featuring artefacts, instruments and photographs related to the observatory and narrative led by Cronyn Observatory coordinator Jan Cami. The presentation will also include showings of the original Dresden meteorite, which crashed to Earth in 1939 and remains the fourth-largest meteorite to have landed in Canada.
The commemorative events, which are free to attend, are scheduled for Saturday, October 24th from 8 to 11 p.m. and Sunday, October 25th from 2 to 5 p.m.
For location of the Cronyn Observatory, please visit http://www.uwo.ca/about/visit/maps.html and enter the keyword ‘Cronyn’ in the search field.
Follow the events on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/westernuCronyn?fref=ts) and Twitter (@westernuCRONYN).
MEDIA CONTACT: Jeff Renaud, Senior Media Relations Officer, 519-661-2111, ext. 85165, jrenaud9@uwo.ca, @jeffrenaud99
