Wondering why there are these hawks all over our observatory website? Maybe some of these Top 3 Reasons are even true:

1. There are lots of hawks – particularly red-tail hawks – that like to hang out on the rising winds around the observatory.
2. We don’t take ourselves too seriously (even though educating students about astronomy is serious business). For many years our mascots were aardvarks (which are nocturnal; it is even possible that the cheap clip art had something to do with them). But after the last snipe hunt, the hawks replaced the aardvarks at all of our telescopes.
3. Astrophysics can be intimidating for some. But it can also be fun. So chill out with our friendly mascots.