Štefánik's Observatory ( cs, Štefánikova hvězdárna, obs. code:

541 __NOTOC__ Year 541 (Roman numerals, DXLI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius, Basilius without colleague (or, less ...

) is an astronomical

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

Petřín Petřín () is a hill in the centre of Prague, Czech Republic. It rises 327 m above sea level and some 130 m above the left bank of the Vltava River. The hill, almost entirely covered with parks, is a favorite recreational area for the inhabitan ...

hill in the center of

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

founded 1928 and named after Slovak astronomer

Milan Rastislav Štefánik Milan Rastislav Štefánik (; 21 July 1880 – 4 May 1919) was a Slovak politician, diplomat, aviator and astronomer. During World War I, he served at the same time as a general in the French Army and as Minister of War for Czechoslovakia. A ...

. Nowadays the observatory specializes above all in popularization of

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

and related natural sciences.

Technology

The main

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

s of the observatory are a double

refractor A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens (optics), lens as its objective (optics), objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptrics, dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope d ...

by Zeiss after the Viennese selenographer

König König (; ) is the German word for "king". In German and other languages applying the umlaut, the transliterations ''Koenig'' and ''Kœnig'', when referring to a surname, also occur. As a surname in English, the use of ''Koenig'' is usual, and som ...

placed in the main dome (bought in 1928) and a Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope installed in the western dome in 1976. The eastern dome of the observatory is only being used for scientific observations and since 1999 equipped with a 40 cm mirror telescope by Meade.

Gallery

Image:Štefánik Observatory Zeiss Refractor.jpg, The observatory's main instrument: double refractor made by Zeiss in 1908 Image:Stefanik statue Observatory Prague CZ 01.JPG, Statue of

in front of

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...

File:Stefanik Observatory Prague CZ 03.JPG, Štefánik's Observatory from the South

References

External links

Observatory and Planetarium of Prague Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stefaniks Observatory Astronomical observatories in the Czech Republic 1928 establishments in Czechoslovakia Petřín 20th-century architecture in the Czech Republic

Technology

Gallery

See also

References

External links