Belgrade Observatory
The Belgrade's astronomical observatory (Engl. Astronomical Observatory Belgrade AOB) is located about four kilometers east of the center of Belgrade on a wooded hill ( Zvezdarska šuma ) between the Danube and the course of the E75 motorway. The chain of hills forms the continuation of the city mountain with the historic Belgrade fortress above the Sava River confluence with the Danube. The observatory area belongs to the eastern Palilula district of the Serbian capital.
Internationally, the observatory is called Astronomical Observatory Belgrade (AOB). The observatory code is 057 , the address is Volgina 7, POBox 74, 11060 Beograd.
Main building and instruments
The building dates from the end of the 19th century (opened in 1887). It has a similar architecture to the Vienna University Observatory , but is a little smaller. The park-like area is surrounded by a wall. The upper floor offers a beautiful view down to the Danube and the other parts of the city.
Under the main dome , which measures almost 15 meters, there is a large lens telescope from Zeiss with an aperture of 65 cm and a focal length of 10.5 m. This large refractor was installed around 1895 and is only slightly smaller than the similar giant telescope in Vienna, which was commissioned 15 years earlier. The telescope has high-precision tracking and additional instruments such as a recording micrometer and a spectroscope .
The other instruments diene (t) en especially the Astrometrie and Spectroscopy: two major meridian circles 19/260 cm with vacuum Miren , a Askania transit instrument , two astrographs with 13 and 16 cm opening, a zenith telescope 11/130 cm and a Littrow 'A solar spectrograph developed by Zeiss for the 20/300 cm equatorial . All these instruments are - distributed over the area - housed in their own domes or meridian houses.
Future observatory in the south
Because of air and light pollution , observatories close to cities no longer meet today's requirements for astrophysics (they remain suitable for astrometry). Therefore a committee of astronomers decided a few years ago to build a new observatory in the south near the border with Kosovo .
The Vidojevica astronomical station has been under construction in southern Serbia, around 150 km southeast of Beograd , since 2010 . It is being built on the 1150 m high Vidojevica near the town of Prokuplje and in 2010 received a Cassegrain telescope with a 60 cm aperture. In 2015, the installation of a large robotic telescope with a diameter of 1.5 m is planned with EU funding .
Literature and Sources
- Communications on the history of astronomy , Heidelberg 2007. Online at [1] (PDF; 118 kB)
- Deutschlandfunk June 18, 2010 The sky over Serbia , with pictures
- Serbian Astronomical Journal , Volume 15, Belgrade 2006.
- Information on the website of the Astronomical Observatory Belgrade (aob)
Coordinates: 44 ° 48 ′ 7.3 " N , 20 ° 30 ′ 47" E