''For the mountains in

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

, see the

Fann Mountains The Fann Mountains () are part of the western Pamir-Alay mountain system in Tajikistan's Sughd Province, between the Zarafshan Range to the north and the Gissar Range to the south. In an east-west direction, they extend from the Fan Darya to ...

.'' Fan Mountain Observatory (or Fan Mountain Station of

Leander McCormick Observatory The Leander McCormick Observatory is one of the astronomical observatories operated by the Department of Astronomy of the University of Virginia, and is situated just outside Charlottesville, Virginia (US) in Albemarle County on the summit of ...

), an observatory operated by the Astronomy Department of the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

in southern

Albemarle County Albemarle County is a United States county located in the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is Charlottesville, which is an independent city entirely surrounded by the county. Albemarle County is part of the Ch ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. It was opened in 1966 with a Tinsley reflector, with a Baker-

Schmidt Schmidt may refer to: * Schmidt (surname), including list of people and fictional characters with the surname * Schmidt (singer) (born 1990), German pop and jazz singer * Schmidt (lunar crater), a small lunar impact crater * Schmidt (Martian c ...

astrometric reflector following in 1972, to extend the

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...

work of the

McCormick Observatory The Leander McCormick Observatory is one of the astronomical observatories operated by the Department of Astronomy of the University of Virginia, and is situated just outside Charlottesville, Virginia (US) in Albemarle County on the summit of ...

, which was suffering from

light pollution Light pollution is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial Visible spectrum, lighting. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the ...

from growing

Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the seat of government of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Quee ...

by this time.

Description

Today both telescopes have been outfitted with state-of-the-art instruments and are operated nightly by university students and faculty. The primary instruments for the telescope are a 2048x2048 SITe CCD for direct imaging and a fiber-fed visible wavelength spectrograph, FOBOS, for general spectroscopy and precision radial velocity measurement. The telescope supports a 1024x1024 HAWAII-1 based HgCdTe infrared camera operating between 0.8 and 2.5 μm. This camera is capable of direct imaging in an 8.5 x 8.5' (2.5 x 2.5 mrad) field with 0.5" (2.4 μrad) pixels as well as polarimetry and grism spectroscopy.

Viewing

Fan Mountain observatory hosts a "public night" twice each year when eyepieces are placed on the two telescopes for general viewing. At other times, the facility is closed to the public, including the grounds and road up to the observatory.

References

External links

Fan Mountain Observatory home page

Forecast of observing conditions. {{Authority control Buildings and structures in Albemarle County, Virginia Astronomical observatories in Virginia University of Virginia 1966 establishments in Virginia

Description

Viewing

See also

References

External links