Volkssternwarte with Planetarium Dieterskirchen
The Volkssternwarte mit Planetarium Dieterskirchen is a public observatory with an attached planetarium in the eastern Bavarian district of Schwandorf . It is located on the southern outskirts of Dieterskirchen at about 500 m above sea level. Since the area around the Upper Palatinate Forest is comparatively little affected by light pollution , Dieterskirchen was particularly suitable as a location for an observatory.
The observatory and planetarium are open to the interested public once a week or as part of booked group tours or special astronomical events. Visitors can watch a live moderated planetarium show as well as observe interesting celestial objects through the available telescopes. The facility is visited by around 3,000 people annually.
history
The observatory with planetarium was opened in 2013/2014 on the initiative of Dr. Heio Steffens built. The Dr. The Heio and Brita Steffens Foundation took over a large part of the financing. The project was also supported by the European Union's LEADER funding program. Since then, the association Sternenfreunde Dieterskirchen e. V.
Furnishing
The main instrument of the observatory, which is realized as a sliding roof construction, is a Cassegrain telescope with a 700 mm aperture and 6400 mm focal length, which is one of the largest publicly accessible telescopes in Bavaria. An H-alpha telescope of the type LS 230 with a 230 mm lens is used for solar observation ; A 30 cm f / 6 Dobsonian and a 20 cm f / 10 Schmidt-Cassegrain are also available for observations.
Further equipment includes in particular astronomical cameras such as an astromodified Sony α7s and the powerful FLI ML 50100 astro camera; This means that both live transmissions of celestial events and professional astrophotography are possible. A BACHES spectrograph and the Echelle spectrograph HOPE, specially designed for the 700 mm Cassegrain telescope, are available for scientific projects in the field of star spectroscopy .
The 6 meter diameter planetarium dome houses the classic optomechanical star projector Polaris MK1 and the digital full dome projection system Sky-Skan Definiti , which enables impressive visualizations of astronomical processes.
photos
Telescope building; from left: 30 cm Dobsonian, 70 cm Cassegrain, 23 cm H-alpha telescope
planetarium
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 24 ′ 41 ″ N , 12 ° 24 ′ 17 ″ E