The Črni Vrh Observatory (,

IAU code This is a list of observatory codes (IAU codes or MPC codes) published by the Minor Planet Center. For a detailed description, ''see observations of small Solar System bodies''. List References {{DEFAULTSORT:Observato ...

: 106) is an astronomical

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 ...

located in western

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

, close to the settlement of Črni Vrh, near the town of

Idrija Idrija (, in older sources ''Zgornja Idrija''; , ) is a town in western Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Idrija. Located in the traditional region of the Slovene Littoral and in the Gorizia Statistical Region, it is notable for it ...

Observatory

The current observatory was built in 1985 and stands at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of . Much of the construction was done by volunteers. Regular astronomical observations started in 1975, at a small observatory that was equipped with home-made instruments and was set up 4 km from the present site. At that time, the first images of Comet West were taken. The site is well above the inversion border much of winter, which allows undisturbed observations on many successive clear nights. The observatory runs
comet and asteroid search program named PIKA
after its Slovene acronym. Since March 2003, the program has been operated on a ne

equipped with a Finger Lake 1k × 1k CCD detector. Telescope project funding has been covered in part by the Planetary Society Shoemaker Grant 2000 and 2010. The recent grant was for the purchase of a deep-cooling Apogee Alta U9000 CCD camera that will increase sensitivity of the imaging system, enabling discoveries of even fainter objects. The new camera has been in operation since October 2011. Members of the Department of Physics, Astronomical Observatory, of the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...

, used the site for observations with their S-C telescope from 1994 to 2009. On 18 August 2008, the amateur astronomer Stanislav Matičič discovered the

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

C/2008 Q1 (Matičič), the first comet discovered in this observatory and in Slovenia. On 16 April 2010, the student Jan Vales discovered the periodic comet designated P/2010 H2 (Vales) in a strong outburst. The

Catalina Sky Survey Catalina Sky Survey (CSS; obs. code: 703) is an astronomical survey to discover comets and asteroids. It is conducted at the Steward Observatory's Catalina Station, located near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. CSS focuses on the searc ...

researchers scanned the same region of the sky only 15 hours earlier and missed it. MPEC 2010-H12: COMET P/2010 H2
/ref>

Telescopes

Observing team

Discoveries

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 ...

credits a large number of minor planet discoveries directly to the observatory (Crni Vrh).

List of discovered minor planets

References

External links

official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crni Vrh Observatory Astronomical observatories in Slovenia * Minor-planet discovering observatories