Centre de recherches en géodynamique et astrométrie

The Observatoire du Calern is an observatory in France on the Calern plateau at 1270 m altitude, a few kilometers from the Caussols plateau, north of the town of Grasse. It is located about 30 km east of Nice and 20 km north-east of Cannes.

The observatory belonged until 1988 to the Centre d' Etudes et de Recherches et Géodynamiques Astronomiques ( CERGA ); with a reorganization and consequent dissolution of the CERGA was the Observatoire de Calern part of the newly founded Observatoire de la Côte d' Azur.

Instruments

The observatory has a Schmidt camera with a 90 cm Öfnnungs and 1.52 m diameter mirror. Under Antoine Labeyrie a number of leading interferometers have been developed, including I2t, GI2T, the latter consisting of two telescopes with a diameter of 1.5 meters, which can be moved on rails based on length 13-65 meters. In addition, prototypes whose combination for a giant telescope project are of telescopes (Optical Very Large Array, OVLA ) were studied. Another interferometer is the Soirdete formed by two 1- meter telescopes.

Further facilities in the observatory two laser for distance measurement of the moon or satellite.