Lifting as she climbs

From a wooded hillside above the Ohio River, the Moeller Observatory aims four high- precision telescopes into the night sky, allowing stargazers to see light years into space. The view also helps Dieter Moeller ’88 share his love of astronomy.

Moeller, the president of a local aerospace company, invested millions of dollars building a private observatory in rural Adams County. Earlier this year, he opened it to the public through a partnership with the Cincinnati Astro-nomical Society.

Now scientists, corporate groups, scout troops and amateur stargazers for miles around come to peer through his telescopes into the vastness of space.

“One of the main missions of the observatory here is to increase scientif- ic engagement, increase scientific literacy through outreach,” Moeller told WCPO-TV News in Cin-cinnati. “I love showing kids galaxies here that are 100, 150 million light years away and say, ‘What you’re looking at is from the age of the dinosaurs.’ That’s enough to blow most peoples’ minds right there.”

A physics major at Case Institute of Technology, Moeller is the owner and chairman of RH Aero Systems, a global jet-engine tooling company headquartered in Mason, near Cincinnati. He’s also chair of the Physics Strategic Advisory Group for the Department of Physics and an occasional classroom speaker.

In 2015, he bought a dairy farm with sweeping river views. One telescope led to others. Soon, he had built a cluster of research-quality instruments that can see back toward the dawn of time.

“At heart, I am a physicist,” Moeller said. “The study of astronomy is the study of the greatest part of nature, not just this environment on the earth but the environment of the whole universe that we inhabit.”

Learn more about the observatory at www.cinastro.org/moeller