- Dr. Amanda Bauer: ♪ I wanna go to space, I wanna break free ♪ Amanda: You ready?

- Angela: With a song in her heart and stars in her eyes, Dr. Amanda Bauer is ready to show off Yerkes Observatory.

- Amanda: It's known for having the world's largest refracting telescope.

There we go.

1897 is when it first opened its eye on the skies.

The dome moves around 360 degrees to allow for the telescope to be able to point in any direction.

[awe-inspiring instrumental] It really innovated the way that astronomy was done.

It was the last big refractor built because, when you see it, you see how mechanically amazing and huge-scale it is.

[dramatic orchestral music] - Angela: The entire observatory floor, at 90 feet wide, serves as a giant elevator, the largest in Wisconsin, lifting astronomers up to the great refractor telescope and into the heavens.

[dramatic music] - Amanda: There's a magic to it in using it.

It's so hands-on.

That just takes you to a different space.

[rich orchestral music] [upbeat synthesizer rhythm] - Angela: As the new deputy director, one of Amanda's first jobs: to make sure the telescopes still function.

- Amanda: They hadn't been used in five years, and I hadn't used a refracting telescope in a while, so just kind of getting my hands in there and seeing if it worked.

Okay... looks good.

You know when you wake up, and you're like, [imitates stretching], and you creak?

That's what the telescope was doing.

[telescope creaking] [laughs] It was pretty spectacular.

It was like understanding the magic that people have been seeing for generations.

[warm, mid-tempo Electronica] - Angela: Amanda also provides this stargazing station a first.

- Amanda: I'm the first woman in 125 years who has been the head of science here, in this observatory.

[upbeat motivational tones] - Angela: She hopes to expand her own horizons with further research.

- Amanda: My area of expertise is galaxy evolution.

[bright, upbeat music] - Angela: Amanda joins a long list of famous astronomers who peered into the galaxy with this exact telescope.

[jazz music] - Amanda: Edwin Hubble is absolutely one of the most famous names that people have heard.

The next big telescope that NASA is going to launch is named the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, because she went from Yerkes to become the very first chief of astronomy at NASA.

Carl Sagan was one of my first idol astronomers.

This observatory is so historic, so many people have come through here.

[lively music] - Angela: One legacy those astronomers left behind is a massive collection of images from our galaxy and beyond.

[gears rasping] - Amanda: We have 180,000 glass plates that capture these images of the cosmos over the last 125 years, and that's useful in research today.

The glass plates that are here are spectacular.

This is Comet Morehouse.

It was discovered by a student who was here in 1908.

What we're doing is reinvigorating that research program, bringing it back after kind of a dormant couple of decades, because it does have opportunities to use these telescopes to train the next generation of students.

[bright classical music] - Angela: Yerkes Observatory also pioneered a historic discovery.

- The shape of the Milky Way galaxy is spiral arms, and they determined that here.

[bright classical music] - Angela: Despite the scientific history here, its future was up in the air.

Over the years, the observatory had fallen into disrepair.

- Amanda: No one knew what was gonna happen to this building, and the glass plate collection, and the telescopes.

How can we resurrect and reimagine what this observatory can do?

- Angela: In 2020, the Yerkes Future Foundation bought the observatory from the University of Chicago.

[bright jazz music] - Amanda: The modern-day purpose of this observatory is really bringing research, art, culture, a cross-disciplinary approach to big ideas.

So, tying that art and science together in every facet of what we do is pretty fun, it's pretty unique.

[giggling] You can come here and get a sense of the magnitude of what was undertaken and the types of discoveries that were made over the last 125 years.

You get to see the biggest refracting telescope in the world, you get to hear these stories come alive about what has happened in this building.

- Angela: And... you might just encounter a ukulele-playing astronomer who reached for the stars.

- Amanda: ♪ I wanna go to space, I wanna float free ♪ ♪ Help me escape the force of gravity ♪ [Amanda giggling]