The Pic du Midi de Bigorre or simply the Pic du Midi (elevation ) is a mountain in the French

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...

. It is the site of the Pic du Midi Observatory.

Pic du Midi Observatory

The Pic du Midi Observatory (french: Observatoire du Pic du Midi) 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 ...

located at 2877 meters on top of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre in the French

. It is part of the Midi-Pyrenees Observatory (french: Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées; OMP) which has additional research stations in the southwestern French towns of

Tarbes Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turba'' ...

Lannemezan Lannemezan (; Gascon Occitan ''Lanamesa'', "heath of the middle") is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department and the Occitanie region in south-western France. The inhabitants are called Lannemezanais. Lannemezan is the largest city in ...

, and

Auch Auch (; oc, label= Gascon, Aush ) is a commune in southwestern France. Located in the region of Occitanie, it is the capital of the Gers department. Auch is the historical capital of Gascony. Geography Localization Hydrography The Riv ...

, as well as many partnerships in South America, Africa, and Asia, due to the guardianship it receives from the French Research Institute for Development (IRD). Construction of the observatory began in 1878 under the auspices of the

Société Ramond The Société Ramond is a French learned society devoted to the study of the Pyrenees mountain range that forms a natural border between France and Spain. It is named after the French politician, geologist, botanist and explorer Louis Ramond de Ca ...

, but by 1882 the society decided that the spiralling costs were beyond its relatively modest means, and yielded the observatory to the French state, which took it into its possession by a law of 7 August 1882. The 8 metre dome was completed in 1908, under the ambitious direction of Benjamin Baillaud. It housed a powerful mechanical equatorial reflector which was used in 1909 to formally discredit the

Martian canal During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed ...

theory. In 1946 Mr. Gentilli funded a dome and a 0.60-meter telescope, and in 1958, a

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 ...

was installed. A 1.06-meter (42-inch)

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 installed in 1963, funded by

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 ...

and was used to take detailed photographs of the surface of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

in preparation for the

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

missions. In 1965 the astronomers

Pierre Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

and

Janine Connes Janine Connes (born c. 1934) is a female French astronomer whose research led to the establishment of the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy method, which was of major significance and laid the foundations of what was to grow into a significa ...

were able to formulate a detailed analysis of the composition of the atmospheres on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

and

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

, based on the infrared spectra gathered from these planets. The results showed atmospheres in

chemical equilibrium In a chemical reaction, chemical equilibrium is the state in which both the reactants and products are present in concentrations which have no further tendency to change with time, so that there is no observable change in the properties of the sy ...

. This served as a basis for

James Lovelock James Ephraim Lovelock (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating sys ...

, a scientist working for the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

in California, to predict that those planets had no life - a fact that would be proven and scientifically accepted years after.Lovelock, James. ''The Vanishing Face of Gaia''. Basic Books, 2009, p. 162. A 2-meter telescope, known as the

Bernard Lyot Telescope The Bernard Lyot Telescope (''Téléscope Bernard Lyot'', or TBL) is a 2 m Cassegrain telescope operating in the visible domain, since 1980. It is located at 2877 m elevation on the Pic du Midi in the French Pyrenees. Since 2007, the Bernard ...

was placed at the observatory in 1980 on top of a 28-meter column built off to the side to avoid wind turbulence affecting the seeing of the other telescopes. It is the largest telescope in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The observatory also has a

coronagraph A coronagraph is a telescopic attachment designed to block out the direct light from a star so that nearby objects – which otherwise would be hidden in the star's bright glare – can be resolved. Most coronagraphs are intended to view ...

, which is used to study the solar corona. A 0.60-meter telescope (the Gentilly's T60 telescope) is also located at the top of Pic du Midi. Since 1982 this T60 is dedicated to amateur astronomy and managed by a group of amateurs, called association T60. The observatory consists of: * The 0.55-meter telescope (Robley Dome); * The 0.60-meter telescope (T60 Dome, welcoming amateur astronomers via the Association T60); * The 1.06-meter telescope (Gentilli Dome) dedicated to observations of the solar system; * The 2-meter telescope or Bernard Lyot Telescope (used with a new generation stellar spectropolarimeter); * The

HACO-CLIMSO (studies of the solar corona); * The bezel Jean Rösch (studies of the solar surface) * The Charvin dome, which sheltered a photoelectric coronometer (which studied the Sun); * The Baillaud dome, reassigned to the museum in 2000 and which houses a 1:1 scale model coronagraph. The observatory is located very close to the

Greenwich meridian The historic prime meridian or Greenwich meridian is a geographical reference line that passes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in London, England. The modern IERS Reference Meridian widely used today ...

. Saturn's moon Helene (Saturn XII or Dione B), was discovered by French astronomers Pierre Laques and Jean Lecacheux in 1980 from ground-based observations at Pic du Midi, and named Helene in 1988. It is also a

trojan moon In astronomy, a co-orbital configuration is a configuration of two or more astronomical objects (such as asteroids, moons, or planets) orbiting at the same, or very similar, distance from their primary, i.e. they are in a 1:1 mean-motion resonance ...

of Dione. The

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid 20488 Pic-du-Midi, discovered at Pises Observatory in 1999, was named for the observatory and the mountain it is located on.

List of discovered minor planets

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. Function ...

credits the discovery of the following

minor planets 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 ''mino ...

directly to the observatory (as of 2017, no discoveries have been assigned to individual astronomers):

International Dark Sky Reserve

Officially initiated in 2009, during the international year of astronomy, the Pic du Midi International Dark Sky Reserve (IDSR) was labeled in 2013 by the

International Dark-Sky Association The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is a United States-based non-profit organization incorporated in 1988 by founders David Crawford, a professional astronomer, and Tim Hunter, a physician/amateur astronomer. The mission of the IDA is " ...

. It's the sixth in the world, the first in Europe and the only one still today in France. The IDSR aims to limit the exponential propagation of

light pollution Light pollution is the presence of unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive use of artificial Visible spectrum, lighting. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting, during the day ...

, in order to preserve the quality of the night. Co-managed by the Syndicat mixte for the tourist promotion of the Pic du Midi, the Pyrénées National Park and the Departmental Energy Union 65, its priority actions are the public education on the impacts and consequences of these pollutions as well as the establishment of responsible lighting in the Haut-Pyrenean territory. It covers 3,000 km², or 65% of the Hautes-Pyrénées. The IDSR includes 251 communes spread around the Pic du Midi de Bigorre and is distinguished in two zones: * A core zone, devoid of any permanent lighting and witnessing an exceptional night quality; * A buffer zone, in which the territory actors recognize the importance of the nocturnal environment and undertake to protect it. The IDSR initiated the program "Ciel Etoilé" (Starry sky), program of reconversion of the 40 000 luminous points of its territory, the program "Gardiens des Etoiles" (Guardians of the stars), program of metrological monitoring of the light pollution evolution, but also the program "Adap'Ter", project that will identify "trames sombres" (Dark frame: nocturnal biodiversity deplacements).

Climate

Pic du Midi de Bigorre has a

mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical weather (climate) for elevations above the tree line, where trees fail to grow due to cold. This climate is also referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. Definition There are multiple definitions of ...

with a

polar Polar may refer to: Geography Polar may refer to: * Geographical pole, either of two fixed points on the surface of a rotating body or planet, at 90 degrees from the equator, based on the axis around which a body rotates * Polar climate, the c ...

temperature regime due to its high elevation. Due to the

Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Current, North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida a ...

moderation of the surrounding lowlands, temperature swings are in general quite low. This results in temperatures rarely exceeding even during lowland heat waves, and also temperatures beneath being extremely rare. The

UV index The ultraviolet index, or UV index, is an international standard measurement of the strength of the sunburn-producing ultraviolet (UV) radiation at a particular place and time. It is primarily used in daily and hourly forecasts aimed at the general ...

is higher than in the surrounding lowlands due to the elevation. Snow cover is permanent during winter months, but melts for a few months each year.

Seasonal lag Seasonal lag is the phenomenon whereby the date of maximum average air temperature at a geographical location on a planet is delayed until some time after the date of maximum insolation (i.e. the summer solstice). This also applies to the minimum ...

is extreme during winter and spring, with February being the clearly coldest month, and May having mean temperatures below freezing. Among lowland climates, the station closely resembles

Nuuk Nuuk (; da, Nuuk, formerly ) is the capital and largest city of Greenland, a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the country's largest cultural and economic centre. The major cities from other co ...

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

for the temperature regime.

References

External links

Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées

Profile of climb from Col du Tourmalet on www.climbbybike.com

A night on the "Vaisseaux d'Etoiles" (Starship) du Pic du Midi
- Photo gallery *
Histoire de l'observatoire du Pic du Midi
(Observatory history)
Video about the Pic du Midi
by Roger Servajean, on

Paris Observatory The Paris Observatory (french: Observatoire de Paris ), a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its histor ...

digital library {{DEFAULTSORT:Midi De Bigorre Astronomical observatories in France

Pic du Midi Observatory The Pic du Midi de Bigorre or simply the Pic du Midi (elevation ) is a mountain in the French Pyrenees. It is the site of the Pic du Midi Observatory. Pic du Midi Observatory The Pic du Midi Observatory (french: Observatoire du Pic du Mid ...