In this video, Professor Peter Martin recounts the decision to sell the observatory and finance a new unit within UofT from this sale: the Dunlap Institute.

This allowed to turn the original gift from the Dunlap family into an entity that could see through the 21st century — and beyond — without risk of losing its preeminent role in research.

The Institute carries on with the dual mandate of the observatory:

1) Experimental research using and developing the top instruments,

2) Outreach.

A few decades later, the farmland around Richmond Hill turned into suburbs, and light pollution had become an issue. Gradually, the faculty moved from the observatory to the downtown UofT campus.

In this video, Professor Emeritus John Percy explains how researchers still carried out breakthrough observations at the David Dunlap Observatory during that period.

Perpetuating a legacy that began with their grandparents establishing the the David Dunlap Observatory in 1935, David M. Dunlap and J. Moffat Dunlap made it possible to create the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

David, who graduated from engineering at the University of Toronto in 1961, and Moffat, an equestrian and former Show Jumping World Champion, have been tireless supporters of education, health care and equine research at Guelph University and Seneca and Humber Colleges.

The two brothers received honorary doctor of laws degrees on June 10, 2011, and one of them —David— delivered the commencement address.