Yunnan Astronomical Observatory

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Yunnan Astronomical Observatory​
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People's Republic of China

The Astronomical Observatory Yunnan ( Chinese  雲南天文台  /  云南天文台 , Pinyin Yunnan Tiānwéntái , English Yunnan Observatories , in short YNAO ) is an observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the Phoenix Mountain (凤凰山) in the population Community Yangfangwang the road district Jinma in District Guandu on eastern outskirts of Kunming , Yunnan Province , China. The facility emerged from the observatory on Purple Mountain near Nanjing in 1938 . The director of the observatory has been Bai Jinming (白金明), head of the Lijiang observation station, since 2014.

history

After the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7, 1937 and the battle for Shanghai that began on August 13, 1937 , the Academia Sinica , the then astronomical research institute on the purple mountain near Nanjing (中央研究院 天文 研究所, today "Observatory on the purple mountain") to evacuate. On August 23, 1937, all scientists and employees under the leadership of Director Yu Qingsong (余青松, 1897–1978) left the city with some equipment, files, photo plates, etc. and went first to Changsha in the Hunan Province . It was a wise decision; in December 1937, the observatory in Nanjing was almost completely destroyed during the bombing of the city by the Imperial Japanese Air Force. As the Japanese pushed west along the Yangtze River and threatened Changsha, the astronomers moved on to Guilin in Guangxi Province , eventually settling in Kunming, along with the United Southwest University .

After arriving in Kunming in the spring of 1938, Prof. Yu noticed that the city was due to its altitude and thin air - Dian Chi Lake on the southwestern edge of the city is 1,886.5 m above sea level - as well as the mild climate with few clouds and clear stars Nights for astronomical observations was extremely suitable. So he decided to build an astronomical observatory in Kunming for the duration of the war in order not to let research in China come to a standstill. After long mountain hikes in the vicinity of the city, he finally chose the more than 2000 m high Phoenix Mountain - more of a hill seen from the Kunming Plain - on the eastern edge of the city as the location. Together with the employees of the Nanjing Observatory, he made an accurate topographical map of the hill and drew plans for the buildings. He commissioned the construction company Lu Gen Ji (陆 根 记 营造 厂), which was the most famous construction company in China at the time, to be relocated from Shanghai to Kunming. The groundbreaking ceremony took place in autumn 1938, and the inauguration took place in spring 1939. At that time, the facility, initially known as the "Observatory on Phoenix Mountain in Kunming" (昆明 凤凰 山 天文台), had four buildings:

  • Building 3: staff dormitory
  • Building 4: visitor dormitory, kitchen

As in Nanjing, the focus on Phoenix Mountain was primarily on observing the sun. In 1940, the observation of the chromosphere was resumed, and on June 30, 1941, an expedition to Lanzhou , which was extremely difficult under the war conditions , was set out to use the total solar eclipse on September 21 to observe the solar corona . That year, Prof. Yu Qingsong resigned from his position as director to devote himself to the development of optical instruments in Guilin and Chongqing . The management of the observatory was initially taken over by Prof. Zhang Yuzhe (张 dann,, 1902–1986), then from 1946 onwards by Prof. Wang Shikui (王士魁, 1904–1969) from Yunnan University . From 1946 to 1950, for the sake of simplicity, the facility, now known as the “Observatory on Phoenix Mountain” (凤凰 山 天文台, Pinyin Fènghuángshān Tiānwéntái ), was operated jointly by the Astronomical Institute of Academia Sinica (中央研究院 天文 研究所) and Yunnan University , after the founding of the People's Republic of China from 1950 to 1958 by Yunnan University together with the rebuilt observatory on the Purple Mountain near Nanjing. From 1951 onwards, the facility was called "Kunming Astronomical Station of the Purple Mountain Observatory" (紫金山 天文台 昆明 天文 工作站) by order of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In 1962, two years after the break with the Soviet Union and the end of support for the Sputnik program or three years before the start of " Project 651 " (651 工程, Pinyin 651 Gōngchéng ) for its own Chinese satellite, one began to train personnel for optical orbit tracking of satellites on the Phönixberg. Two years later, in 1964, several telescopes were converted for satellite observation purposes. In 1974, in connection with the "trailblazer" (尖兵, Pinyin Jiānbīng ) program, a satellite camera was acquired from Germany in order to better keep an eye on the said reconnaissance satellites; the safe return of the groundbreaking satellites was extremely difficult.

Sun observation station on Lake Fuxian

As early as 1959 there had been discussions in Kunming about setting up a solar observatory at a second location in Yunnan. However, these plans were initially postponed and instead the observatory on Phoenix Mountain was expanded to include a separate building for the old solar spectrometer; In 1966 another building for chromosphere observation was built on the Phoenix Mountain. In 1982, however, they returned to the old project and began working out plans for a new solar observatory. The search for a suitable location turned out to be extremely difficult and dragged on for more than 10 years. Ultimately, the choice fell on the eagle's nest (老鹰 地, Pinyin Lǎo Yīng Dì ) in the area of ​​the village Yijiu (矣 旧村), about 60 km southeast of Kunming in the large municipality of Yousuo (右 Groß 镇) in Chengjiang County on the northeast bank of the Fuxian -Sees , Yuxi . There the actual duration of sunshine is around 2200 hours per year.

In 2000, the Kunming Observatory began developing a vacuum telescope with a diameter of 1 m, with which the fine structures of the sun, both in the photosphere and in the chromosphere , were to be observed with high resolution, especially in the infrared range . After the solar observation station on Lake Fuxian (抚仙湖 太阳 观测 站, Pinyin Fǔxiān Hú Tàiyáng Guāncè Zhàn ) was approved by the State Commission for Development and Reform in 2005 , the individual components began to be manufactured in Russia, Nanjing and on site in Kunming to let, for a total of about 15 million yuan (in terms of purchasing power about 15 million euros). The groundbreaking ceremony for the largest solar observatory in Asia took place in mid-2008. On June 30, 2009, the construction of the tower for the vacuum telescope began. In August 2010, all auxiliary systems were installed, and on September 1, 2010 the first sunspot was photographed. Regular observation operations began in June 2011.

Lijiang Astronomical Observation Station

In 1972 the Kunming Astronomical Station was separated from the network with Nanjing and renamed the "Yunnan Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences" (中国科学院 云南 天文台, Pinyin Zhōngguó Kēxuéyuàn Yúnnán Tiānwéntái ). The official abbreviation YNAO is derived from the English name "Yunnan Astronomical Observatory" and has been retained for legal reasons to this day, although there are now three observatories under the umbrella of the headquarters in Kunming, which is why the English long form was changed to "Yunnan Observatories" (for grammatical reasons, no change was necessary to the Chinese name). Even then, thought was given to another location where an optical telescope with a large aperture should be installed.

As with the solar observation station in Yuxi, the project dragged on over several decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, locations in Binchuan , Dali district , and Luquan near Kunming were initially favored . After the project had been idle for a few years, the Kunming Observatory again put together a working group for the site selection in January 1992, which was pre-selected for the rather dry, i.e. H. Cloudless West Yunnan (滇西, Pinyin Diān Xī ) concentrated. In the end, four places remained as candidates: Yao'an in Chuxiong District and Yongsheng , Ninglang and Yulong in Lijiang District . You drove to the individual places in random order and made astronomical observations there with portable telescopes. After ten rounds, the working group came to the conclusion that Gaomeigu (高 美 古村) in the area of ​​the administrative village of Tianhong (天 红 村), Tai'an Township (太 安 乡) in Yulong County was the most suitable location for the new observatory be.

“Gao mei gu” means “place higher than heaven” in the language of the local Naxi ethnicity; the location of the observatory is 3193 m above sea level, on average 254 days a year the nights are cloudless, plus 30 km from the district town of Yulong and stray light from street lamps. However, to be absolutely sure, the Kunming Observatory began a three-year weather observation phase in Gaomeigu in July 1994. On the basis of the data collected in this way on the amount of clouds, air turbulence (i.e. seeing ), night sky light , extinction, etc., the project review group of the Academy of Sciences (中国科学院 验收 组, Pinyin Zhōngguó Kēxuéyuàn Yànshōuzǔ ) also found in April 1998 that Gaomeigu is an excellent location for an observatory in southern China.World icon

The groundbreaking ceremony for the new observatory took place on September 29, 2003. First of all, a dome building was built for the planned 2.4 m telescope, a building for ventilation and air conditioning (the average temperature in Gaomeigu is 7 ° C), a coating building, a building for scientific research and a dormitory for the astronomers. That alone cost 30 million yuan. Then there was the actual reflecting telescope , designed and built by the British Telescope Technologies Limited, a spun off company of Liverpool John Moores University , which had to be paid in pounds and the total costs for the Lijiang Astronomical Observation Station (丽江 天文 观测 站, Pinyin Lìjiāng Tiānwén Guāncè Zhàn , international code O44 ) to 68 million yuan. With a mirror diameter of exactly 2.45 m, this was the world's largest fully automatic and robot-controlled telescope at the time, which was not only able to track objects independently over long periods of time, but could also be swiveled to new targets by remote control in seconds. The buildings were completed in February 2005, the installation of the telescope began in October 2005, and in May 2007 it was inaugurated by Li Yan (李 焱, * 1963), the then director of the Yunnan observatories.

In addition, the observation station, which has been open to external astronomers since May 2008, has a 1.8 m reflector telescope on which an adaptive optics consisting of 127 elements was mounted in September 2009 . Since the end of 2011, this telescope has been connected to the Taiwan Automated Telescope Network, TAT for short, which is coordinated by the Department of Physics at Tsing Hua National University in Hsinchu and which continuously measures the brightness fluctuations of stars that vary in pulsation . In a further step, the Institute of Optics and Electronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Chengdu worked together with the Research Center for Laser Physics and Technology at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Academy in Beijing and the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since the end In 2012 we worked on the development of adaptive optics with a sodium laser guide star , i.e. a point of light generated by a laser beam with the wavelength of the sodium D-line in the sodium layer of the atmosphere at a height of 90 km, which enables the adaptive optics to correct the unrest in the air . In 2013 the system was mounted on the 1.8 m telescope and on January 25, 2014 the first star was photographed with it. Since the telescope can be aligned very accurately, it was in 2016, similar to the 1.2 m telescope in Nanshan , Xinjiang , expanded for quantum communication, the entangled photons to be received, that of a direct line of sight requiring Scientific quantum experiment satellite (量子 科学 实验 卫星, Pinyin Liàngzǐ Kēxué Shíyàn Wèixīng ), abbreviated to QUESS because of the English name Quantum Experiments at Space Scale international, to Earth.

40 m radio telescope Kunming

The 40 m telescope on the Phoenix Mountain near Kunming

With the 25 m radio telescopes in Sheshan near Shanghai and Nanshan south of Ürümqi , China had had two large telescopes since 1986 and 1993, respectively, but two more telescopes of this type were needed for the People's Republic of China's lunar program in order to establish a reliable VLBI network To be able to monitor and control the monsoons. Kunming and Miyun near Beijing were chosen as locations for this . While the prototype of the Chang'e-1 orbiter was undergoing its first tests in 2005, construction of the radio telescopes began at the same time in Kunming and Miyun. The 40-m telescope for Kunming was jointly owned by the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 39th Research Institute of the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (中国 电子 科技 集团公司 第三 十九 研究所, Pinyin Zhōngguó Diànzǐ Kējì Jítuán Gōngsī Dì Wǔshísì Yánjiūsuǒ ) was developed and built, which was then subordinate to the Department of Electronic Warfare of the General Staff (since January 1, 2016 the Strategic Combat Support Force of the People's Liberation Army ). The foundation stone was laid in August 2005, and barely a year later, in May 2006, the telescope was ready for use. Its main task was to receive the scientific data sent to Earth by the lunar probes and, as part of the Chinese VLBI network (中国 VLBI 网, Pinyin Zhōngguó VLBI Wǎng ), to participate in precise trajectory monitoring .

The inner part of the parabolic reflector of the 360 ​​t antenna in Cassegrain design is composed of 208 individual sheets of aluminum alloy, up to a diameter of 26 m, followed by 256 stainless steel grid elements up to a full diameter of 40 m Steel. The antenna works in the S and X bands , can be aligned to within 30 arc seconds and swiveled at a speed of 1 ° / s (horizontal) or 0.5 ° / s (vertical). Since the launch of Chang'e-1 on October 24, 2007, the antenna has been used on all lunar missions, and in each case continuously for the entire duration of the mission; From the Chang'e-3 mission, the Delta-DOR method was used for orbit tracking . When the radio telescope is not working for the lunar program, it is used for astronomical research, especially for observing pulsars . In addition, although the Yunnan Astronomical Observatory is not a full member of these organizations, it participates in the European VLBI network and the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) as required .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 张 居 甲. In: http://sourcedb.ynao.cas.cn/ . Retrieved April 8, 2019 (Chinese).
  2. ↑ 云南 天文台 及其 前身 历任 领导 情况 (1938-2014). In: http://www.ynao.cas.cn/ . June 26, 2015, accessed April 8, 2019 (Chinese).
  3. ↑ 现任 领导. In: http://www.ynao.cas.cn/ . Retrieved April 8, 2019 (Chinese).
  4. ↑ 丽江 天文 观测 站. In: http://www.gmg.org.cn/ . Retrieved April 15, 2019 (Chinese).
  5. ↑ 周 益 、 陈璐: 陆 根 记 营造 厂 ： 从 百 乐 门 到 军 统 魔窟. In: http://news.sina.com.cn/ . August 2, 2007, Retrieved April 9, 2019 (Chinese).
  6. ↑ 陆 根 记 营造 厂 —— 代言 昆明 近代 以来 的 建筑 营造 高峰. In: https://www.toutiao.com/ . September 19, 2016, Retrieved April 9, 2019 (Chinese).
  7. ↑ 中央研究院 天文 研究所 的 建立 与 演变. In: http://www.acas.ac.cn/ . September 5, 2014, accessed April 8, 2019 (Chinese).
  8. ↑ 云南 天文台 及其 前身 历任 领导 情况 (1938-2014). In: http://www.ynao.cas.cn/ . June 26, 2015, accessed April 10, 2019 (Chinese).
  9. ^ History of Yunnan Observatories. In: http://english.ynao.cas.cn/ . Accessed April 10, 2019 . It is not known whether the German satellite camera is the BMK 75 ballistic measuring chamber from Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen or the SBG satellite observation device from VEB Carl Zeiss in Jena .
  10. ↑ 杨 质 高: 亚洲 最大 太阳 观测 站 落户 抚仙湖 畔. In: http://news.sina.com.cn/ . April 10, 2008, Retrieved April 12, 2019 (Chinese).
  11. ↑ 抚仙湖 天文台 观测 助手 本人 为 你 简述 天文台 的 生活. In: https://k.sina.com.cn/ . March 6, 2019, accessed April 12, 2019 (Chinese).
  12. ↑ Site. In: http://fso.ynao.ac.cn/ . Retrieved April 12, 2019 .
  13. ^ Liu Zhong et al .: New Vacuum Solar Telescope and Observations with High Resolution. (PDF) In: https://arxiv.org/ . March 27, 2014, accessed April 12, 2019 . For comparison: the average duration of sunshine in Germany is around 1550 hours per year.
  14. ↑ 杨 质 高: 亚洲 最大 太阳 观测 站 落户 抚仙湖 畔. In: http://news.sina.com.cn/ . April 10, 2008, Retrieved April 12, 2019 (Chinese).
  15. ↑ 一 米 红外 太阳 塔 初 光 成功. (PDF) Retrieved April 12, 2019 (Chinese).
  16. ^ History of Yunnan Observatories. In: http://english.ynao.cas.cn/ . Accessed April 10, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Yi: 云南 天文台 - 丽江 高 美 古 观测 基地. In: http://www.astrocn.com/ . November 24, 2009, Retrieved April 13, 2019 (Chinese).
  18. ↑ 丽江 高 美 古 天文 观测 站. In: http://www.innyo.com/ . May 30, 2011, Retrieved April 14, 2019 (Chinese).
  19. ↑ Gerhard Samulat u. David Fritz: China looks into space. (PDF) In: https://www.us.schott.com/ . Retrieved April 14, 2019 .
  20. ↑ 云南 天文台 及其 前身 历任 领导 情况 (1938-2014). In: http://www.ynao.cas.cn/ . June 26, 2015, accessed April 8, 2019 (Chinese).
  21. ↑ Wei Kai et al .: First light on the 127-element adaptive optical system for 1.8-m telescope , Chinese Optics Letter, Vol. 8, No. 11, 2010
  22. ^ Fan Yufeng et al .: Observations and New Astronomical Facilities in Lijiang Observatory. In: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ . June 21, 2013, accessed April 15, 2019 .
  23. ↑ 丽江 天文 观测 站. In: http://www.gmg.org.cn/ . Retrieved April 15, 2019 (Chinese).
  24. ↑ Chou Dean-Yi et al .: Taiwan Automated Telescope Network. In: https://www.hindawi.com/ . June 15, 2009, Retrieved April 15, 2019 (Chinese).
  25. ↑ Wei Kai et al .: First light for the sodium laser guide star adaptive optics system on the Lijiang 1.8m telescope. In: Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics 2016, Vol. 16, No. 12, p. 183ff.
  26. ↑ 丽江 1.8 米 望远镜 准备 进行 量子 卫星 实验. In: https://v.youku.com/ . August 14, 2016, accessed April 15, 2019 . (Chinese with English subtitles).
  27. ↑ 陈云芬 、 张 蜀 新: “嫦娥奔月” 云南省 地面 主干 工程 已 基本 完成. In: http://news.sina.com.cn/ . March 17, 2006, Retrieved April 16, 2019 (Chinese).
  28. ↑ 刘九龙 、 王广利: 嫦娥 三号 实时 任务 期间 VLBI 观测 数据 统计 分析. (PDF) In: Annals of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, CAS No. 36, 2015. Retrieved April 16, 2019 (Chinese).
  29. ↑ 40 米 射 电 望远镜 介绍. In: http://www.ynao.cas.cn/ . January 6, 2012, accessed April 16, 2019 (Chinese).