Official opening of North Frontenac Observatory set for Aug.14

Craig Bakay | Aug 11, 2021

Residents and visitors will get their first chance to get a look at the 16” Fred Lossing Telescope Saturday, Aug. 14 from 7-9 p.m. at the North Frontenac Dark Sky Preserve (5816 Road 506) with the official opening of the North Frontenac Observatory.

“Getting the public back to the star pad would be great,” said spokesperson Betty Hunter. “We will be observing all appropriate making and social distancing covid-19 protocols (but) we can have 100 at the venue and 10 on the pad.”

There will be a ribbon cutting, special guest speakers as well as free cake and coffee.

The observatory was built through a go-fund-me campaign that raised $3,700 plus some donations from the Township. All the labour was donated. The opening had been scheduled for last year but of course covid changed all those plans.

“I’m so glad we’re finally doing things again,” Hunter said. “I’m very sociable so all the events (being cancelled have been driving me crazy.

“And, I don’t know of any other sky pad that has an observatory.”

And, for fans of meteor showers, this year’s Perseids are expected to peak Thursday, Aug. 12 so there will likely be folks at the sky pad watching that.

But the star of the show will be the refurbished 16” telescope, which was graciously donated by the Roal Astronomical Society of Canada (Ottawa Centre) on the condition an observatory be built to house it.

It is named for Frederick P. Lossing (1915-98), a guest researcher at Ottawa University (chemistry) who was a founding member of the Ottawa Observers Group in 1954.

Through the years, he was a driving force at Ottawa’s North Mountain Observatory, having built more than a dozen telescopes and created an electronic drive system and inexpensive photometer which were both used by many amateur astronomers.