Royal Observatory Edinburgh
The Royal Observatory Edinburgh (ROE ) is a public observatory on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh, which was built in 1894. She is assigned to the Science and Technology Facilities Council ( STFC ) and is home to the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC), the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh and a visitor center.
Bulk
Previously, the ROE on Calton Hill was in Edinburgh ( where today the City Observatory is ), but moved in 1896 to its current location after a foundation of James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford, was subject to the condition in 1888, the observatory to obtain. Crawford bequeathed to the observatory not only his valuable library ( with original editions of the works of Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and many others), but also astronomical instruments ( he himself had a private observatory in Dunecht ).
The observatory has two domes. In the east tower is a 36 - inch Cassegrain reflecting telescope, which was installed there in 1930, but is no longer in operation. The east tower is part of the visitor center. In the west tower until 2010 was a 1951 installed 16/24-inch Schmidt camera ( now in the National Museum of Scotland ) and is still a 20 inch reflecting telescope for educational purposes.
The observatory was under the former Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, which was established in 1785. First Regius Professor (literally Royal Professor ), Robert Blair. 1811, the Astronomical Institution of Edinburgh was founded by private citizens with John Playfair as president. They built the observatory on Calton Hill, the 1822 gained the status of Royal Observatory during a visit of George IV. At that time it was also connected to the Regius Professorship, then Thomas James Henderson, Regius Professor of the second, after the chair was not occupied in 1828 until 1834. He was also the first Astronomer Royal of Scotland. Second Astronomer Royal from 1846 to 1888 was Charles Piazzi Smyth, who already had the idea to set up Foreign offshoot of the Edinburgh Observatory with better observation conditions ( Tenerife ).
From 1858 from the observatory from the time display at Nelson 's Monument on Calton Hill was controlled ( by raising and lowering a ball ) and a cannon in the Castle of Edinburgh on telegraph lines. Later, additional time displays were opened, a time - cannon in Dundee.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the observatory under Hermann Brück a center of technological development automatically controlled telescopes in the UK was. 1961-1973 had the observatory a field office in Earlyburn 30 km south Edinburgh for optical observation of artificial satellites. 1967-1976 they had on Monte Porzio at Rome a Schmidt camera and from 1973 she led the UK Schmidt Telescope ( UKST ) at Siding Spring in Australia (from 1988 to the Anglo -Austrian Observatory assumed ). From the 1970s they had the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope ( UKIRT ) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, from 1987, she also took on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope ( JCMT ) on Mauna Kea. From 1990, followed by a series of reorganizations not only the ROE, but also of the other astronomical research institutions in the UK.
Directors of the ROE
Directors were initially the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, who was Regius Professor in Edinburgh at the same time:
After that, the staff unit of Astronomer Royal and Regius professorship was dissolved ( Astronomer Royal since 1995 John Campbell Brown of the University of Glasgow ). Directors of the ROE were then:
- From 1990 Paul Murdin ( Acting Director)
- 1995-1997 Stuart Pitt
- 1998-2004 Adrian Russell
- 2005-2012 Ian Robson
- From 2012 Gillian Wright