Iso-Heikkilä Observatory (, ) is an

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

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 ...

used by a local amateur astronomical association, Turun Ursa ry in the

Iso-Heikkilä Iso-Heikkilä ( Finnish; ''Storheikkilä'' in Swedish) is a district of the city of Turku, in Finland. It is located to the west of the city centre, bordering on the city centre's VIII District (Port Arthur). The current () population of Iso- ...

district of

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. Referred to as Turku Observatory () 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 ...

, it was previously operated by the

University of Turku The University of Turku (, shortened ''UTU'') is a multidisciplinary public university with eight faculties located in the city of Turku in southwestern Finland. The university also has campuses in Rauma and Pori and research stations in Kevo ...

from 1937 to 1972, and is the observatory where several Finnish discoverers of minor planets made their observations.

History

The observatory was originally owned by the department of astronomy of the

. It was built in 1935 and 1936, and technically designed by physics and astronomy professor

Yrjö Väisälä Yrjö Väisälä (; 6 September 1891 – 21 July 1971) was a Finnish astronomer and physicist. His main contributions were in the field of optics. He was also active in geodetics, astronomy and optical metrology. He had an affectionate ni ...

. Väisälä's research team discovered a total of 807

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

s and 7

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 ...

s at the observatory. Väisälä also contributed significantly to research in the areas of

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

and

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...

. As the city expanded and a steel factory was built under a kilometer away from the observatory, the astronomy department of the university moved to

Tuorla Observatory Tuorla Observatory is the Department of Astronomy at the University of Turku, southwest Finland. It is the largest astronomical research institute in Finland. Together with the Space Research Laboratory at the Physics Department of the University o ...

in the 1950s. In the 1960s, an apartment building area was built in Iso-Heikkilä, preventing any observations of low-sky objects in all directions except north. Iso-Heikkilä remained in the use of students for some time, until the university gave up its ownership completely in 1972. The observatory building and the site are now owned by the city of Turku. The observatory is currently operated by Turun Ursa ry, an astronomical association founded by Yrjö Väisälä in 1928. The association arranged in Väisälä's time and continues to arrange stargazing events for the general public at the observatory. The members use the observatory, as well as the Kevola Observatory, for amateur astronomical observations.

Instruments and facilities

The observatory has two 6-meter domes in the East-West direction. The main instruments of the association are located in the western dome: the 15 and 13 centimeter

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 ...

s made by Yrjö Väisälä and a 19 cm Schmidt-Väisälä camera. In the past, the dome has housed a 50 centimeter wide-angle camera which is nowadays located in the Kevola Observatory – it was the telescope used to discover the aforementioned minor planets and comets.

Standard baseline

In the forest further away from the observatory, about to the northeast, is a concrete pillar used by Yrjö Väisälä in the 1940s in his baseline measurements. The Väisälä comparator has been used in important baseline measurements around the world. Another pillar that remains today is located to the southwest from the previous one, in a forest across the railway.

References

External links

Turun Ursa
amateur astronomers association {{DEFAULTSORT:Iso-Heikkila Observatory Astronomical observatories in Finland Buildings and structures in Turku Astronomy-optics society

History

Instruments and facilities

Standard baseline

See also

References

External links