Harvard College Observatory Harvard College Observatory The Harvard College Observatory (HCO) is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and was founded in 1839. With the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, it forms part of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. HCO houses a collection of approximately 500,000 astronomical plates taken between the mid-1880s and 1989 (with a gap from 1953–68). This 100-year coverage is a unique resource for studying temporal variations in the universe. The Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard project
Academic regalia of Harvard University matching waistcoat. Members of the University Council, not doctors, or holding no degree from this University, are authorized to wear the doctor's gown with double crow's-foot of the color of the department to which they belong. All graduates' hoods are black lined with crimson silk, and are cut in the Edinburgh simple shape. Unlike most other United States universities, there is no velvet trim. Rank is indicated by the hood length: master's hoods are 42", doctors 48". Harvard bachelors do not wear hoods. The hood was actually the same hood of the Oxford MA that became fossilized in Harvard before