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Kuffner Observatory
The Kuffner observatory is one of two telescope-equipped public astronomical observatories situated in Austria's capital, Vienna. It is situated in the West of the city's Ottakring district, on the slope of the Gallitzinberg at 302 m altitude. Originally a private research institution, it was converted into an educational astronomy facility after World War II as buildings and city lights had encroached to a degree that severely hampered scientific nightsky observations. Today the main tasks of the observatory consist in public education on astronomy, operating and preserving the historical equipment, and minor projects in scientific astronomy. The observatory was noted for its work on photometry, conducted by astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, star catalogs, and the determining of distances to other stars. The observatory has several astronomical instruments of historical interest, including a noted heliometer and large meridian circle, and also a vertical circle. The observatory's fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuffner Observatory
The Kuffner observatory is one of two telescope-equipped public astronomical observatories situated in Austria's capital, Vienna. It is situated in the West of the city's Ottakring district, on the slope of the Gallitzinberg at 302 m altitude. Originally a private research institution, it was converted into an educational astronomy facility after World War II as buildings and city lights had encroached to a degree that severely hampered scientific nightsky observations. Today the main tasks of the observatory consist in public education on astronomy, operating and preserving the historical equipment, and minor projects in scientific astronomy. The observatory was noted for its work on photometry, conducted by astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, star catalogs, and the determining of distances to other stars. The observatory has several astronomical instruments of historical interest, including a noted heliometer and large meridian circle, and also a vertical circle. The observatory's fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk High School
Folk high schools (also ''Adult Education Center'', Danish: ''Folkehøjskole;'' Dutch: ''Volkshogeschool;'' Finnish: ''kansanopisto'' and ''työväenopisto'' or ''kansalaisopisto;'' German: ''Volkshochschule'' and (a few) ''Heimvolkshochschule;'' Norwegian: ''Folkehøgskole( NB)/Folkehøgskule( NN);'' Swedish: ''Folkhögskola;'' Hungarian: ''népfőiskola'') are institutions for adult education that generally do not grant academic degrees, though certain courses might exist leading to that goal. They are most commonly found in Nordic countries and in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The concept originally came from the Danish writer, poet, philosopher, and pastor N. F. S. Grundtvig (1783–1872). Grundtvig was inspired by the Marquis de Condorcet's ''Report on the General Organization of Public Instruction'' which was written in 1792 during the French Revolution. The revolution had a direct influence on popular education in France. In the United States, a Danish folk school ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werner Gruber
Werner Gruber (born 15 March 1970, in Ostermiething) is an Austrian physicist, author, lecturer, and cabaret artist and is well known from ORF and as a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ). Biography Gruber grew up in Ansfelden, Upper Austria and graduated in 1999 with a degree in physics from the University of Vienna. He then worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna. Since February 2013 Gruber manages the astronomical institutions of the ''Adult Education centers in Vienna'' – the ''Planetarium Wien'', the Kuffner Observatory and the Urania Observatory. He teaches the introduction to physics at the Medical Faculty of the Sigmund Freud University Vienna, and at the Institute of Experimental Physic at the University of Vienna. After performing on 26 September 2015, Gruber suffered a cardiac arrest, which he survived thanks to a prompt cardiac massage by his colleague Puntigam and a rapid successor r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark-sky Movement
The dark-sky movement is a campaign to reduce light pollution. The advantages of reducing light pollution include an increased number of stars visible at night, reducing the effects of electric lighting on the environment, improving the well-being, health and safety of both people and wildlife, and cutting down on energy usage. Earth Hour and National Dark-Sky Week are two examples of such efforts. The movement started with professional and amateur astronomers alarmed that nocturnal skyglow from urban areas was blotting out the sight of stars. For example, the world-famous Palomar Observatory in California is threatened by sky-glow from the nearby city of Escondido and local businesses. For similar reasons, astronomers in Arizona helped push the governor there to veto a bill in 2012 which would have lifted a ban on illuminated billboards. Nocturnal animals can be harmed by light pollution because they are biologically evolved to be dependent on an environment with a certain numb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Ultraviolet Explorer
International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE or Explorer 57, formerly SAS-D), was the first space observatory primarily designed to take ultraviolet (UV) electromagnetic spectrum. The satellite was a collaborative project between NASA, the United Kingdom's Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC, formerly UKSRC) and the European Space Agency (ESA), formerly European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). The mission was first proposed in early 1964, by a group of scientists in the United Kingdom, and was launched on 26 January 1978 aboard a NASA Thor-Delta 2914 launch vehicle. The mission lifetime was initially set for 3 years, but in the end it lasted 18 years, with the satellite being shut down in 1996. The switch-off occurred for financial reasons, while the telescope was still functioning at near original efficiency. It was the first space observatory to be operated in real time by astronomers who visited the groundstations in the United States and Europe. Astronomers made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuffner Observatory Vienna
Kuffner or Küffner may refer to: * Kuffner (surname) * 12568 Kuffner (1998 VB5), a Main-belt Asteroid discovered in 1998 * Kuffner observatory The Kuffner observatory is one of two telescope-equipped public astronomical observatories situated in Austria's capital, Vienna. It is situated in the West of the city's Ottakring district, on the slope of the Gallitzinberg at 302 m altitude. Ori ..., one of two telescope-equipped public observatories situated in Austria's capital, Vienna * Palais Kuffner, city-palace in Vienna that was built for the brewery barons von Kuffner {{disambiguation de:Küffner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pendulum Clock
A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates. From its invention in 1656 by Christiaan Huygens, inspired by Galileo Galilei, until the 1930s, the pendulum clock was the world's most precise timekeeper, accounting for its widespread use. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, pendulum clocks in homes, factories, offices, and railroad stations served as primary time standards for scheduling daily life, work shifts, and public transportation. Their greater accuracy allowed for the faster pace of life which was necessary for the Industrial Revolution. The home pendulum clock was replaced by less-expensive, synchronous electric clock, synchronous, electric clocks in the 1930s and '40s. Pendulum clocks are now kept mostly for their Interior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stellar Parallax
Stellar parallax is the apparent shift of position of any nearby star (or other object) against the background of distant objects, and a basis for determining (through trigonometry) the distance of the object. Created by the different orbital positions of Earth, the extremely small observed shift is largest at time intervals of about six months, when Earth arrives at opposite sides of the Sun in its orbit, giving a baseline distance of about two astronomical units between observations. The parallax itself is considered to be half of this maximum, about equivalent to the observational shift that would occur due to the different positions of Earth and the Sun, a baseline of one astronomical unit (AU). Stellar parallax is so difficult to detect that its existence was the subject of much debate in astronomy for hundreds of years. Thomas Henderson, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, and Friedrich Bessel made first successful parallax measurements in 1832-1838, for the stars alpha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliometer
A heliometer (from Greek ἥλιος ''hḗlios'' "sun" and ''measure'') is an instrument originally designed for measuring the variation of the sun's diameter at different seasons of the year, but applied now to the modern form of the instrument which is capable of much wider use. The basic concept is to introduce a split element into a telescope's optical path so as to produce a double image. If one element is moved using a screw micrometer, precise angle measurements can be made. The simplest arrangement is to split the object lens in half, with one half fixed and the other attached to the micrometer screw and slid along the cut diameter. To measure the diameter of the sun, for example, the micrometer is first adjusted so that the two images of the solar disk coincide (the "zero" position where the split elements form essentially a single element). The micrometer is then adjusted so that diametrically opposite sides of the two images of the solar disk just touch each other. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertical Circle
In astronomy, a vertical circle is a great circle on the celestial sphere that is perpendicular to the horizon. Therefore, it contains the vertical direction, passing through the zenith and the nadir. There is a vertical circle for any given azimuth, where azimuth is the angle measured east from the north on the celestial horizon. The vertical circle which is on the east–west direction is called the prime vertical. The vertical circle which is on the north–south direction is called the local celestial meridian (LCM), or principal vertical. Vertical circles are part of the horizontal coordinate system. Instruments like this were more common in 19th century observatories and were important for locating and recording coordinates in the cosmos, and observatories often had various other instruments for certain functions as well as advanced clocks of the period. The popularly known example in the observatories, were the Great refractors which became larger and larger and came to ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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