Royal Observatory Edinburgh

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Gate and East Tower 2010

The Royal Observatory Edinburgh (ROE) is a government observatory on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh that was built in 1894. It is assigned to the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and houses the UK Astronomy Technology Center (UK ATC), the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and a visitor center. Legally, the ROE is administered by the Royal Observatory Edinburgh Trust, a non-profit organization with the Scottish Charity-No. SC013784.

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Astronomy has been taught since the University of Edinburgh was founded in 1583. The students and professors only had portable devices at their disposal for measurements, so that efforts were made to find permanent devices at an early stage. After several unsuccessful efforts in the 18th century, a building was finally erected on Calton Hill at the end of the century. In 1822 this observatory was institutionalized with a Royal Charter . In 1896 the observatory moved to its present location on Blackford Hill after a condition from James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford , was made to maintain the observatory in 1888. Crawford bequeathed not only his valuable library (with original editions of works by Isaac Newton , Nicolaus Copernicus , Johannes Kepler , Galileo Galilei and many others) to the observatory, but also astronomical instruments (he himself had a private observatory in Dunecht ).

The observatory has two domes. In the east tower is a 36-inch Cassegrain reflecting telescope , which was installed there in 1930 but is no longer in use. The east tower is part of the visitor center. In the west tower was a 16/24 inch Schmidt camera installed in 1951 (today in the National Museum of Scotland ) and is still a 20 inch reflector telescope for teaching purposes.

The observatory was formerly under the Regius Professor of Astronomy at Edinburgh University, which was established in 1785. The first Regius Professor (literally Royal Professor) was Robert Blair . In 1811 the Astronomical Institution of Edinburgh was founded by private individuals with John Playfair as president. They built the observatory on Calton Hill, which was given the status of a Royal Observatory during a visit by George IV in 1822 . At that time it was also linked to the Regius Professorship, at that time Thomas James Henderson , the second Regius Professor, after the chair had not been filled from 1828 to 1834. He was also the Royal of Scotland's first astronomer . The second Royal Astronomer from 1846 to 1888 was Charles Piazzi Smyth , who already had the idea of ​​founding off-site branches of the Edinburgh observatory with better observation conditions (Tenerife).

From 1858 the time display at Nelson's Monument on Calton Hill (by raising and lowering a ball) and a cannon in Edinburgh Castle was controlled via telegraph connection from the observatory . Other time displays were added later, such as a time cannon in Dundee .

In the 1950s and 1960s, the observatory under Hermann Brück became a center for the technical development of automatically controlled telescopes in Great Britain. 1961 to 1973 the observatory had a branch in Earlyburn 30 km south of Edinburgh for the optical observation of artificial earth satellites. From 1967 to 1976 they had a Schmidt camera on Monte Porzio near Rome and from 1973 they directed the UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) in Siding Spring in Australia (from 1988 subordinated to the Anglo-Austrian Observatory). From the 1970s they had the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii , and from 1987 they also took over the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea. From 1990 a number of reorganizations followed not only the ROE, but also the other astronomical research institutions in Great Britain.

overall view

Directors of the ROE

Directors were initially the astronomer Royal of Scotland, who was also Regius Professor in Edinburgh:

Thereafter, the personal unit of Astronomer Royal and Regius Professur was dissolved (Astronomer Royal has been John Campbell Brown from the University of Glasgow since 1995 ). Directors of the ROE were thereafter:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e The History of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. In: Website of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh Trust. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .

Coordinates: 55 ° 55 '22.1 "  N , 3 ° 11' 17.2"  W.