The Purple Mountain Observatory (), also known as Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory 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 on the

Purple Mountain Purple Mountain may refer to: China * Purple Mountain (Nanjing), a mountain in Nanjing, Jiangsu Ireland * Purple Mountain (Kerry), a mountain in County Kerry United States * Purple Mountain (Alaska), a mountain in Alaska * Purple Peak (Col ...

in the east of

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

Description

Bundesarchiv Bild 137-048848, China, Nanking, Sternwarte

The Purple Mountain Observatory was established in 1934 funded by the Nationalist Government of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

and administered by

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

. The longtime director of the observatory from 1950 to 1984 was Chinese astronomer

Zhang Yuzhe Zhang Yuzhe (; 16 February 1902 – 21 July 1986), also known as Yu-Che Chang, was a Chinese astronomer and director of the Purple Mountain Observatory who is widely regarded as the father of modern Chinese astronomy. accessed 3 October 2006 H ...

(, 1902–1986, also known as Y. C. Chang). By the late 1980s, increasing

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 Nanjing meant Purple Mountain was no longer viable as a working observatory. It has since shifted its focus to public education, with much of the actual scientific work being carried out in its five branch observatories located at

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

(in

Delingha Delingha (; ), or Delhi ( SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Mongolian: ''Delhi hot''), is the seat of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northern Qinghai province, China. It is located approximately southeast of the Da Qaidam Admi ...

Ganyu Ganyu District () is under the administration of Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China. It contains the province's northernmost point and is located along the Yellow Sea coast where the coastline takes a sharp turn toward the southeast, and border ...

Xuyi Xuyi County () is under the administration of Huai'an, Jiangsu province, China. The southernmost of Huai'an's county-level divisions, it borders the prefecture-level cities of Suqian to the north and Chuzhou (Anhui) to the south and west. Xuyi is ...

, Honghe (in

Jiamusi Jiamusi (Manchu: ; formerly Kiamusze) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China. Located along the middle and lower reaches of the Songhua River, it faces Russia's Khabarovsk Krai across the Ussuri R ...

), and

Qingdao Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...

. 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 observatory, simply referred to as Nanking, with the discovery of 149

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 between 1955 and 1983, while the observatory's PMO NEO Survey Program is credited with more than 600 discoveries between 2006 and 2013.

Discoveries

The observatory discovered the periodic

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

60P/Tsuchinshan 60P/Tsuchinshan, also known as Tsuchinshan 2, is a periodic comet in the Solar System with an orbital period of 6.79 years. Tsuchinshan is the Wade-Giles transliteration corresponding to the pinyin ''Zĭjīn Shān'', which is Mandarin Chinese f ...

and

62P/Tsuchinshan 62P/Tsuchinshan, also known as Tsuchinshan 1, is a periodic comet discovered on 1965 January 1 at Purple Mountain Observatory, Nanking. It will next come to perihelion on 25 December 2023 at around apparent magnitude 8, and will be from Earth ...

, as well as the non-periodic (Tsuchinshan), also known as Comet 1977 X, and . Many

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

s were also discovered, including the

Trojan asteroid In astronomy, a trojan is a small celestial body (mostly asteroids) that shares the orbit of a larger body, remaining in a stable orbit approximately 60° ahead of or behind the main body near one of its Lagrangian points and . Trojans can sha ...

2223 Sarpedon 2223 Sarpedon is a dark Jupiter trojan from the Trojan camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 4 October 1977, by astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory near Nanking, China. The D-type asteroid belongs to the 30 largest J ...

2260 Neoptolemus 2260 Neoptolemus is a large Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 26 November 1975, by astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanking, China. The dark D-type asteroid is one of the 50 l ...

2363 Cebriones 2363 Cebriones is a large Jupiter trojan from the Trojan camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 4 October 1977, by astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanking, China. The dark D-type asteroid is one of the 40 larg ...

2456 Palamedes 2456 Palamedes is a large Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 30 January 1966, by astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanking, China. The assumed C-type asteroid has a rotation per ...

, and the eponymous

3494 Purple Mountain 3494 Purple Mountain, provisional designation , is a bright Vestian asteroid and a formerly lost minor planet from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. First observed in 1962, it was officially discovered on 7 Decem ...

Near-Earth object survey

The ''Chinese Near-Earth Object Survey'' (CNEOS), based at the Xuyi Station in

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...

, started observations in 2006. It uses a 1:04=1:20=1:80 m

Schmidt telescope Schmidt may refer to: * Schmidt (surname), including list of people with the surname * Schmidt (singer) (born 1990), German pop and jazz singer * Schmidt (lunar crater), a small lunar impact crater * Schmidt (Martian crater), a crater on Mars * ...

equipped with a 4K × 4K CCD detector with the

drift-scanning A time delay and integration or time delay integration (TDI) charge-coupled device (CCD) is an image sensor for capturing images of moving objects at low light levels. While using similar underlying CCD technology, in operation it contrasts with s ...

function. As of August 2012, the program has observed 149,971 asteroids, found 1,279 new provisional designation asteroids, and cataloged 251 numbered asteroids including five

Jupiter trojan The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange poin ...

s, two Hildian, and one

Phocaea Phocaea or Phokaia (Ancient Greek: Φώκαια, ''Phókaia''; modern-day Foça in Turkey) was an ancient Ionia Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northern ...

asteroid. The program has also observed the position of 824

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...

s (NEOs) and discovered four new ones: the

Apollo asteroid The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth ...

, and the three Amor asteroid , , and .

List of discovered minor planets (1955–1983)

A total of 149

s were discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory between 1955 and 1983.

List of discoveries by the PMO NEO Survey Program

Several hundred minor planets were discovered by the observatory's PMO NEO Survey Program from 2006 to 2013.

Image gallery

File:PurpleMountainObservatory01.JPG, Gate of the Purple Mountain Observatory File:Purple Mountain Observatory - Xuyu Station Door.jpg, Entrance at the Xuyi Station File:Purple Mountain Observatory - Xuyu Station.jpg, Telescope at Xuyi Station

References

External links

Purple Mountain Observatory website
{{Authority control Astronomical observatories in China Buildings and structures in Nanjing * * Minor-planet discovering observatories Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Jiangsu Research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences