Calar Alto Observatory

The Calar Alto Observatory is a German - Spanish observatory on the 2168 m high Calar Alto in the Sierra de los Filabres in southern Spain ( Almería ). The official name is German -Spanish Astronomical Center ( DSAZ ) or in Spanish Centro Hispano- Alemán Astronómico ( CAHA ).

Telescopes

Calar Alto are five large optical reflecting telescopes:

• 3.5 - m telescope ( since 1984). It is the largest reflecting telescope in Western Europe. On construction, among other things, the companies were Schott ( Zerodur ) and Zeiss involved.
• 2.2 - m telescope (since 1979)
• 1.23 - m telescope ( was 1975)
• Schmidt telescope with a 80 cm entrance aperture and 1.20 m diameter mirror (since 2000 TT). This originally operated from 1954 at the Hamburg Observatory telescope was spent in 1975 following the Calar Alto with its better weather conditions.
• Spanish 1.52 - m telescope ( independently operated by the Spanish National Observatory of Madrid ( OAN ) )

History

37.223611111111 - 2.5461111111111Koordinaten: 37 ° 13 ' 25 " N, 2 ° 32 ' 46 " W

The construction of the observatory at Calar Alto goes back to a memorandum of the German Research Foundation on the situation of the Astronomy of 1962. In this memorandum, the construction of a large radio telescope was to compensate for the residue of observational astronomy in Germany after the Second World War ( later built as Effelsberg radio telescope in Effelsberg ) and stimulated a large optical observatory in a region with a favorable climate. Both projects were actually realized.

1967, the Senate of the Max Planck Society decided to establish the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg as a carrier of such a large observatory. There were plans for an observatory in the Mediterranean and one in the southern hemisphere, each with a 2.2 - m telescope and a 3.5- m telescope at one of two locations. Long the Gamsberg was provided as the southern site near Windhoek in Namibia today. These plans were but for political reasons never be realized, the second 2.2 - m telescope was therefore erected later on the La Silla Observatory, ESO.

Therefore, the 3.5 - m telescope was like the northern 2.2 - m telescope and smaller telescopes on the northern site for which the Calar Alto was selected north of Almería.

On September 28, 1979, the Calar Alto Observatory was officially opened by King Juan Carlos I of Spain. During the first 25 years of the telescopes mainly German and Spanish only a small part of astronomers were available.

Since 1 January 2005, the Calar Alto Observatory is due to a cooperation agreement between the Max Planck Society and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC ) jointly by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and by the Andalusian Institute for Astrophysics ( IAA) in Granada operated; the telescopes are two partners for 50% of the time. Several scientists at the observatory were recently involved together with colleagues from various other observatories from ten countries in the discovery and exploration of the supermassive black hole in the quasar OJ 287, the largest known black hole with fixed mass.