Onsala Space Observatory

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25 m telescope at the Onsala Space Observatory

The Space Observatory Onsala ( Swedish Onsala rymdobservatorium , internationally known as Onsala Space Observatory , OSO ) is a public Swedish facility for radio astronomy . It is located 45 km south of Gothenburg in Onsala . The observatory is part of the Institute for Space and Geosciences at Chalmers University of Technology .

The observatory was founded in 1949 by Olof Rydbeck . In 1990 it became the Swedish State Radio Astronomy Institution.

Twin telescope

The observatory operates four radio telescopes . The oldest was built in 1963 and has a reflector diameter of 25 meters. This works in the centimeter range. Another radio telescope with a reflector diameter of 20 meters (built 1975 to 1976) is protected by a radome and works in the centimeter and millimeter range down to a minimum of three millimeters wavelength . Since 2017, the observatory has had a twin telescope, consisting of two identical radio telescopes with a diameter of 13.2 meters each. The telescopes are used for both astronomical and geodetic measurements and can be combined with other telescopes to form a network ( Very Long Baseline Interferometry ). In addition to the mobile radio telescopes, there is also a LOFAR station at the observatory.

The observatory operated the Swedish ESO Submillimeter Telescope (SEST), a 15 meter radio telescope at the La Silla Observatory, from 1987 to 2003 . Together with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy , it operates the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX). The Swedish participation in Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA), Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), the European VLBI Network (EVN) and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is coordinated via the observatory .

Web links

Commons : Onsala Space Observatory  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c International evaluation of Onsala Space Observatory , Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council), 2010, ISBN 978-91-7307-173-4 .
  2. ↑ a b c History , Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg.
  3. ↑ Olof EH Rydbeck: Femtio år som rymdforskare och ingenjörsutbildare: från skånska horisonter till fjärran galaxer. Del 1 , hdl : 2077/52163 . Del 2 , hdl : 2077/52162 .
  4. ↑ a b Telescopes , European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network, accessed July 11, 2019.
  5. ↑ Swedish – ESO Submillimetre Telescope (decommissioned) , La Silla Observatory, accessed on July 11, 2019.

Coordinates: 57 ° 23 ′ 35 ″  N , 11 ° 55 ′ 4 ″  E