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1830 Joseph Caldwell, the University’s first president, constructs an observatory in the backyard of his house
1875 Laboratory work in physics is officially offered at UNC-Chapel Hill
1949 Morehead Planetarium, the first planetarium in the South, opens to share science knowledge with North Carolinians
1959 Astronauts begin training in celestial navigation at Morehead Planetarium
1970 Morris Davis becomes Carolina’s first official astronomer
1973 The Morehead Observatory is built, making it the first astronomical observatory on a college campus
1986 In partnership with Carolina, the SOAR telescope is built, which now sits atop the Cerro Pachon mountain in Chile, 8,775 feet above sea level