Scientific Observatory

The observatory at the institute building is located in the dome of the Viktor-Franz-Hess-Building, which was already built in February 1986. In 1992 we started the planning work and the telescope then arrived in 1996.

The so far most spectacular event was the discovery of the second eruption of the star V838 Mon, which has later drawn public attention to it because of its pictures of the light echo in pictures of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), in February 2002.

Since 2015 the observatory obtained several upgrades. The original mount was replaced with a fork mount from the Austrian company ASA, also all instruments were replaced with state-of-the-art ones. Now there are three spectrographs and one imager available.

Documentation:

• Telescope and mount
• Instruments in operation
• Decommissioned instruments
• Handbuch (english)
• Publications
• Practical telescope course (german)

The telescope can be operated with scientific instruments only. It does not have an ocular for visual (by eye) use. Thus no guided tours can be offered.