The Ondřejov Observatory (; ) is the principal

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It is located in the municipality of Ondřejov, southeast of

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, Czech Republic. It has a wide telescope, which is the largest in the Czech Republic.

History

The facility was constructed in 1898, by Czech amateur astronomer and entrepreneur Josef Jan Frič as a private observatory. On 28 October 1928, he donated the facility to the Czechoslovak state to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its independence. The observatory, located at an altitude of , away from the air and light pollution of urban Prague, was administered by

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

until the founding of the

Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Czech: ''Československá akademie věd'', Slovak: ''Česko-slovenská akadémia vied'') was established in 1953 to be the scientific center for Czechoslovakia. It was succeeded by the Czech Academy of Science ...

in 1953, which from then on operated it as part of its Astronomical Institute in conjunction with other Czechoslovak observatories. In 1967, a

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

measuring in width was added to the observatory, which at that time was the 7th largest telescope in the world. Now it is the largest telescope in the Czech Republic and is in the second hundred in the world. It has been responsible, among other scientific achievements, for the discovery of numerous

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s; more recent works of astronomers from Ondřejov include examination of the trajectory and origin of the

Chelyabinsk meteor The Chelyabinsk meteor () was a superbolide that entered Earth's atmosphere over the southern Ural region in Russia on 15 February 2013 at about 09:20 YEKT (03:20 UTC). It was caused by an approximately , near-Earth asteroid that entered ...

. More than 700 minor planets have been discovered at this observatory. While most of these discoveries are officially credited to the astronomers who discovered them, a remaining 23 minor planets are directly credited to "Ondrejov" (the observatory itself) by the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Funct ...

for the period 1997–2008. The main-belt asteroid 7204 Ondřejov, discovered by Petr Pravec in 1995, was named for the village where the observatory is located.

List of discovered minor planets

Gallery

Ondřejov Astro Solar radio telescope1.jpg, Ten-meter solar flux monitor at Ondřejov 65-cm telescope dome (Ondřejov observatory).jpg, The dome of the 65-cm telescope 2-m telescope dome (Ondřejov observatory).jpg, The dome of the 2-m telescope Solar Telescope3, Ondřejov Astronomical.jpg, Solar Telescope with outer housing Solar Spectrograph 2, Ondřejov Astronomical.jpg, Horizontal Solar Spectrograph Central Plain, Ondřejov Astronomical.jpg, Central plain with former J. J. Frič house BART Telescope, Ondřejov Astronomical.jpg, Robotic telescope BART

References

External links

Astronomical Institute, responsible for the observatory

Photos of the observatory

1 June 2018 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ondrejov Observatory 1898 establishments in Austria-Hungary Astronomical observatories in the Czech Republic * Minor-planet discovering observatories Buildings and structures in Prague-East District

History

List of discovered minor planets

Gallery

See also

References

External links