David Dunlap Observatory
The David Dunlap Observatory is an astronomical observatory of the University of Toronto in the north of the city in Richmond Hill , Ontario. It is located on approximately 76 hectares.
The main telescope of the observatory is a large 1.88 m reflecting telescope , once the second largest telescope in the world and still today the largest telescope in Canada . In addition to the large reflector telescope, there are other small telescopes on the premises. There used to be a small radio telescope . Since the observatory with 238 m above sea level. NN is relatively low and is now surrounded by numerous settlements (and thus by many artificial light sources), the performance is significantly lower than at other, more remote observatories. Even so, the observatory is still used for spectral astronomy. In the past, it pioneered the exploration of globular clusters and contributed to the discovery that the X-ray binary star Cygnus X-1 is a black hole.
history
The observatory was founded on May 31, 1935 by Clarence Chant. Due to the increasing light pollution in the vicinity of the observatory and the associated decreasing performance of the optical telescope, the operation has recently become unprofitable. Therefore, the observatory was auctioned off by the University of Toronto in 2007. The contract was awarded to Corsica Development, Inc., which allowed the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada to operate as a teaching facility in 2009. Today guided tours and occasional scientific observations take place in the observatory.
Web links
Coordinates: 43 ° 51 ′ 44 " N , 79 ° 25 ′ 21" W.