Perth Observatory install a 16-inch telescope at the Observatory that was built and used by the University of Western Australia staff and students, as well as Perth Observatory astronomers. Harris then moved the astrographic telescope, which had been in storage since August 1963, to the new site after arranging its refurbishment; the telescope recommenced observations on 29 March 1968, taking second epoch photographic plates for proper motion studies. In 1968, the Lowell Observatory of Flagstaff Arizona USA, located a 24-inch Boller and Chivens telescope at the Perth Observatory as part of the International Planetary Patrol Program. The program was designed to collect
Percival Lowell saddened Lowell, a dedicated pacifist. This, along with some setbacks in his astronomical work (described below), undermined his health and contributed to his death from a stroke on November 12, 1916, aged 61. Lowell is buried on Mars Hill near his observatory. Lowell claimed to "stick to the church" though at least one current author describes him as an agnostic. Lowell became determined to study Mars and astronomy as a full-time career after reading Camille Flammarion's "La planète Mars". He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the