Bayfordbury Observatory is the

University of Hertfordshire The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was ident ...

astronomical Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies ...

and

atmospheric physics Within the atmospheric sciences, atmospheric physics is the application of physics to the study of the atmosphere. Atmospheric physicists attempt to model Earth's atmosphere and the atmospheres of the other planets using fluid flow equations, che ...

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...

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 ...

, and one of the largest teaching observatories in the UK. It is located in the relatively dark countryside of

Bayfordbury Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire, is a large Grade II* listed country house with surrounding parkland, and the location of a University of Hertfordshire campus, housing its biology/geography field station and observatory. History of Bayfordbury Bayford ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, 6 miles from the main university campus in Hatfield. The first telescope was built in 1969, and since then has been used as a teaching observatory for undergraduate students, staff and student research as well as for public outreach activities.

History

The first telescope, a 16-inch Newtonian/

Cassegrain Cassegrain may refer to * Cassegrain reflector, a design used in telescopes * Cassegrain antenna, a type of parabolic antenna * Cassegrain (crater), on the Moon * a Belgian canned vegetables producer now part of Bonduelle S.A. People : * Guillaume ...

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 ...

, was built on the site in 1969, one year after astronomy was first taught at the

Hatfield Polytechnic The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was iden ...

. In 1970 the observatory was formally opened by

Richard van der Riet Woolley Sir Richard van der Riet Woolley Officer of the Order of the British Empire, OBE Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (24 April 1906 – 24 December 1986) was an English astronomer who became the eleventh Astronomer Royal. His mother's maiden n ...

, then

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The post ...

. Over the years the number of telescopes has increased along with the size of astronomy department. On the 30th anniversary in 2000, the observatory underwent a large renovation. Three new telescope domes and a 4.5m radio telescope were built, as well as a control building, opened and named after Sir

Patrick Moore Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore (; 4 March 1923 – 9 December 2012) was an English amateur astronomer who attained prominence in that field as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter. Moore was president of the Brit ...

, from where the computer-controlled telescopes can be operated and images analysed.

Astronomical observatory

The observatory has seven permanently mounted main

optical telescopes An optical telescope is a telescope that gathers and focuses light mainly from the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, to create a magnified image for direct visual inspection, to make a photograph, or to collect data through electr ...

, the first being the 20-inch J.C.D Marsh

Cassegrain Telescope The Cassegrain reflector is a combination of a primary concave mirror and a secondary convex mirror, often used in optical telescopes and radio antennas, the main characteristic being that the optical path folds back onto itself, relative to the ...

, and the largest is a Planewave CDK24 24-inch telescope. The other telescopes include four equatorially mounted,

robotic Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...

16-inch

Meade LX200 The Meade LX200 is a family of commercial telescopes produced by Meade Instruments launched in 1992 with 8" (20.32 cm) and a 10" (25.4 cm) Schmidt–Cassegrain models on computerized altazimuth mounts. Two larger models, a 12" (30.48 ...

s as well as a 14-inch Meade LX200. These telescopes are equipped with research-grade CCD and

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...

cameras,

spectrograph An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...

s and

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

cameras. A number of smaller telescopes are co-mounted to the main telescopes to act as guidescopes, widefield telescopes or

H-alpha H-alpha (Hα) is a specific deep-red visible spectral line in the Balmer series with a wavelength of 656.28 nm in air and 656.46 nm in vacuum; it occurs when a hydrogen electron falls from its third to second lowest energy level. H-alph ...

solar telescope A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph ...

s. As well as using optical wavelengths, the observatory also has extensive

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...

capabilities. The largest

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...

is the 4.5m R.W. Forrest telescope which is used for receiving the 21cm Hydrogen line and continuum emission. A further three 3m radio telescopes are soon to operate together as a 115 metre baseline

interferometer Interferometry is a technique which uses the ''interference'' of superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important investigative technique in the fields of astronomy, fiber op ...

. A nearby university science building houses a

planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetarium ...

used during open evenings and groups visits. The roof of the building hosts a number of the observatory's sensing equipment including a Sky Quality Meter for quantifying levels of light pollution, a

coelostat A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph ...

for observing the sun, and day and night-tim
all-sky cameras
- two of six the university operates throughout the UK. The university organises a variety of public outreach events including monthly open evenings from October till March and group visits for school classes and community groups.

Atmospheric physics remote sensing

Since 2010 the observatory has also grown to serve as a

station for the university's Centre for Atmospheric & Instrumentation Research. A former telescope dome now houses a remotely operable mount with a micropulse

LIDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...

ceilometer A ceilometer is a device that uses a laser or other light source to determine the height of a cloud ceiling or cloud base. Ceilometers can also be used to measure the aerosol concentration within the atmosphere. A ceilometer that uses laser light ...

, ultra-sensitive

sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

polarimeter A polarimeter is a scientific instrument used to measure the angle of rotation caused by passing polarized light through an optically active substance.cirrus Cirrus may refer to: Science *Cirrus (biology), any of various thin, thread-like structures on the body of an animal *Cirrus (botany), a tendril *Infrared cirrus, in astronomy, filamentary structures seen in infrared light *Cirrus cloud, a type ...

-detecting

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

pyrometer A pyrometer is a type of remote-sensing thermometer used to measure the temperature of distant objects. Various forms of pyrometers have historically existed. In the modern usage, it is a device that from a distance determines the temperature of ...

, with further plans to add an infrared spectropolarimeter in the near-future. The roof of the nearby science building also hosts an automatic

sun photometer A sun photometer is a type of photometer conceived in such a way that it points at the sun. Recent sun photometers are automated instruments incorporating a sun-tracking unit, an appropriate optical system, a spectrally filtering device, a photod ...

and lunar photometer as part of the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

AERONET network, a scanning infrared

radiometer A radiometer or roentgenometer is a device for measuring the radiant flux (power) of electromagnetic radiation. Generally, a radiometer is an infrared radiation detector or an ultraviolet detector. Microwave radiometers operate in the microwave w ...

, a

pyrgeometer A pyrgeometer is a device that measures near-surface infra-red radiation spectrum in the wavelength spectrum approximately from 4.5 μm to 100 μm. It measures the resistance/voltage changes in a material that is sensitive to the net e ...

and

pyranometer A pyranometer is a type of actinometer used for measuring solar irradiance on a planar surface and it is designed to measure the solar radiation flux density (W/m2) from the hemisphere above within a wavelength range 0.3 μm to 3 μm. The name pyran ...

, as well as day and night-time all-sky cameras.

Gallery

File:Marsh telescope (11928047634).jpg, 20" Marsh Telescope File:Kitchin_Telescope_(11927718225).jpg, Kitchin Telescope File:Planetarium_(9197608147).jpg, The planetarium at Bayfordbury File:RW_Forrest_radio_telescope_(9192659822).jpg, The 4.5m R.W. Forrest radio telescope File:LiDAR_(6964213031).jpg, The micropulse LIDAR

External links

Bayfordbury Observatory Website

Images from Bayfordbury Observatory on Flickr

University of Hertfordshire AllSky Cameras
*

References

{{Reflist University of Hertfordshire Astronomical observatories in England Meteorological observatories Planetaria in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in Hertfordshire Robotic telescopes Astronomy in the United Kingdom 1969 establishments in England