Sterrekundig Instituut Utrecht: The Last Years

Abstract

I describe the last years of the 370-year long life of the Sterrekundig Instituut Utrecht, which was the second-oldest university observatory in the world and was closed in early 2012 after the Faculty of Science and the Board of Utrecht University decided, without providing qualitative or quantitative arguments, to remove astrophysics from its research and education portfolio.

arXiv commentTo be printed in proceedings of the April 2012 conference "370 Years of Astronomy in Utrecht"