Thuringian State Observatory Tautenburg

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Karl Schwarzschild Observatory of the Thuringian State Observatory
inside view
Karl Schwarzschild Observatory of the Thuringian State Observatory 2015

The Thuringian State Observatory Tautenburg is an observatory in the Tautenburg Forest , Thuringia .

The observatory was founded in 1960 as an institute of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin near the village of Tautenburg , at an altitude of 341 m. In 1992 the institute became the Thuringian State Observatory (TLS) Karl Schwarzschild Observatory , a public law institution of the Free State of Thuringia. The observatory operates three telescopes, namely the 2 m reflector telescope, the small automated TEST (Tautenburg Exoplanet Search Telescope) and a radio telescope station.

The most important astronomical observation instrument of the observatory is the Alfred Jensch telescope, which was put into operation in 1960 , a 2 m reflector telescope with a spherical main mirror, which was manufactured by the Carl Zeiss company in Jena . It is the largest telescope on German soil next to the Fraunhofer telescope (as of 2012). It can also be used as a Schmidt camera for astrophotography , the angle of view is then 3.3 ° × 3.3 °. The Schmidt plate reduces the aperture to 1.38 m; it will then be the largest Schmidt telescope in the world. Alternatively, it can be operated with a full 2 ​​m aperture in a Cassegrain mirror arrangement , as a Pressmann-Camichel telescope , the angle of view is then 10–20 arc seconds. The Schmidt telescope (with 4 m focal length inside the telescope) is particularly suitable for observing large sky fields, while the designs with Nasmyth focus (21 m focal length) in the upper fork leg of the moving telescope or with Coudé Focus (focal length 92 m) outside the telescope in a special room.

With the help of the Alfred Jensch telescope, several exoplanets and brown dwarfs were discovered or their discovery was supported, namely around the stars HD 137510 , CoRoT-3 , HD 8673 , 11 Ursae Minoris , HD 139357 , 30 Arietis B , HD 13189 , 4 Ursae Majoris , HD 32518 , 41 Draconis , and Pollux . The observatory has thus confirmed its international importance. The TEST telescope was also built in 2005 specifically for the observation of extrasolar planets by means of transit events (stellar eclipses during the transit of a planet). Various additional devices, such as the echelle spectrograph in the cellar of the dome building of the observatory, expand the performance and application possibilities of the telescopes for various astronomical issues.

LOFAR antenna at the Thuringian State Observatory

With a radio telescope, the Tautenburg State Observatory has also been one of 40 stations in the international LOFAR project for observing celestial objects in the frequency range from 10 to 240 MHz since 2010 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roland Hedewig: The largest Schmidt mirror telescope in the world
  2. ↑ Thuringian State Observatory Tautenburg: Detecting extrasolar planets by means of precise radial velocities measurements - Results from the Tautenburg survey. Retrieved May 8, 2015 .

Web links

Commons : Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 '48.4 "  N , 11 ° 42' 40.2"  E