Rutherfurd Observatory

When Pupin Physics Laboratories were completed in 1927, the home of the observatory was moved to the top of the building.

Below the Rutherfurd Observatory on the 14th floor was the site of Professor Wallace Eckert's Astronomical Laboratory, in which he constructed the first device to perform general scientific calculations automatically in 1933-34.

The new Russian government headed by Lenin refused to pay for or accept the telescope, which remained crated in a warehouse until 1920, when Columbia bought it.

It was sold in 1997 to South Carolina State Museum, which specializes in the upkeep of the old Alvan Clark refractors.

[3] Rutherfurd observatory has been in continuous operation since Pupin was constructed, but in 2009 a new "Northwest Corner Building" was erected next to it, six floors higher than the roof of Pupin and blocking a significant portion of its field of view, and putting out a considerable amount of light, interfering with observations in the remaining sky.