School observatory
A school observatory is an observatory that is built on a school building or in a school garden and is used to deepen scientific or technical lessons. Today, however, many of these observatories are no longer supervised by a teacher, but by a local astro association - and then also operated as a public observatory .
Many well-equipped school observatories can be found in the area of the former GDR . Because in East Germany emphasis was placed on having astronomy as a separate school subject . Some of these schools cooperated with Russian partners in the field of space research .
Among the most important of these observatories are
- the school observatory "Johannes Franz" in Bautzen (formerly GDR), which was also involved in Soviet satellite observation programs from 1958 to 1982 (see also Moonwatch );
- the Robert-Mayer-Volks- und Schulsternwarte Heilbronn , which is equipped with three large reflector telescopes , a Coudé refractor, special solar telescopes and theodolites and also has a historical hollow globe ;
- The Kepler school observatory offers an impressive panoramic view of the old town of Graz and the Schlossberg . The Styrian capital also has astonishingly good air quality.
- The former school observatory in Karlsruhe has a large historical telescope for planetary observation , a Steinheil refractor of 6 inches from the state observatory in Heidelberg.