Columbia telescope collector at heart of new observatory

The Boeing Observatory telescopes, large and small, came to the S.C. State Museum because of Robert B. Ariail.

The longtime Columbia resident spent most of his adult life finding, buying and restoring historical telescopes. His connections in the telescope field helped the museum in 1997 land the historic 1926 Alvan Clark telescope, once the property of Columbia University and now the main instrument for the museum’s observatory.

In 2011, Ariail donated his personal collection to the museum, including 63 telescopes and 200 other pieces of equipment.

“Robert Ariail has put together a vintage collection of astonishing proportions, not only the finest assembly anywhere of early American telescopes, but a library to match,” said Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy and history of science at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the day the donation was announced.

Many of those telescopes will be on display in the Robert B. Ariail Collection of Historical Astronomy at the observatory.

Ariail, who served on the board of the museum for years, could have sold his collection in pieces for high prices, but he wanted the collection to remain intact for future telescope buffs.

“I get great pleasure out of know that the collection will be preserved and will be available for all to enjoy for years into the future,” Ariail said in a written statement. “This project of restoration has been the experience of a lifetime.”

He wrote of his personal collection in terms that also fit the long effort to build the observatory, planetarium and 4D theater.

“It may be likened to climbing Everest and arriving at a point a scant hundred feet or so from the summit. The oxygen is thin and the footing precarious. Every step is plodding, and the final peak seems ever so elusive. While all that can be thought of is the race to the finish, exhilaration must be controlled and care exercised during the final few steps.”

This story was originally published August 9, 2014 at 9:43 PM with the headline "Columbia telescope collector at heart of new observatory."