The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is a 16-nation intergovernmental research organisation for ground-based astronomy. Created in 1962, ESO has provided astronomers with state-of-the-art research facilities and access to the southern sky. The organisation employs about 730 staff members and receives annual member state contributions of approximately €162 million. Its observatories are located in northern Chile.
Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observatory is granted to Caltech and its research partners, which include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Yale University, and the National Optical Observatories of China.
The Haute-Provence Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the southeast of France, about 90 km east of Avignon and 100 km north of Marseille. It was established in 1937 as a national facility for French astronomers. Astronomical observations began in 1943 using the 1.20 m telescope, and the first research papers based on observations made at the observatory were published in 1944. Foreign observers first used the observatory in 1949, when Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge visited.
Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, part of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics (RSAA) at the Australian National University (ANU), incorporates the Anglo-Australian Telescope along with a collection of other telescopes owned by the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, and other institutions. The observatory is situated 1,165 metres (3,822 ft) above sea level in the Warrumbungle National Park on Mount Woorat, also known as Siding Spring Mountain. Siding Spring Observatory is owned by the Australian National University (ANU) and is part of the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories research school.
WASP or Wide Angle Search for Planets is an international consortium of several academic organisations performing an ultra-wide angle search for exoplanets using transit photometry. The array of robotic telescopes aims to survey the entire sky, simultaneously monitoring many thousands of stars at an apparent visual magnitude from about 7 to 13.
South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is the national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. The facility's function is to conduct research in astronomy and astrophysics. The primary telescopes are located in Sutherland, which is 370 kilometres (230 mi) from Observatory, Cape Town, where the headquarters is located.
Farm Cove Observatory (FCO) is an amateur astronomical observatory in Pakuranga, Auckland, New Zealand, where Jennie McCormick discovered the main-belt asteroid 386622 New Zealand in September 2009.
The Magdalena Ridge Observatory (MRO) is an astronomical observatory in Socorro County, New Mexico, about 32 kilometers (20 mi) west of the town of Socorro. The observatory is located in the Magdalena Mountains near the summit of South Baldy Mountain, adjacent to the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research. Currently operational at the site is a 2.4-meter fast-tracking optical telescope, and under construction is a ten-element optical interferometer.
The Crossley telescope is a 36-inch (910 mm) reflecting telescope located at Lick Observatory in the U.S. state of California. It was used between 1895 to 2010, and was donated to the observatory by Edward Crossley, its namesake.
Nikolaev Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
COROT-9b is an exoplanet orbiting the star COROT-9, approximately 1500 light years away in the constellation Serpens. COROT-9b's distance of nearest approach to its parent star of approximately 0.36 AU was the largest of all known transiting planets at the time of its discovery, with an orbital period of 95 days. The transit of this planet lasts 8 hours. The planet is at a distance from its star where there is a strong increase in albedo as the temperature decreases, because of the condensation of reflective water clouds in the atmosphere. This suggests its atmosphere may be locked into one of two states: a cloudless state with temperatures between 380 K and 430 K, or covered in water clouds with a temperature in the range 250 K to 290 K.
The Lick–Carnegie Exoplanet Survey (LCES) is a search for exoplanets using the Keck I optical telescope of the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The survey is sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation. The survey comprises a decade of observations. The survey is led by Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California at Santa Cruz, and R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution.
The NASA Exoplanet Archive is an online astronomical exoplanet catalog and data service that collects and serves public data that support the search for and characterization of extra-solar planets (exoplanets) and their host stars. It is part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center and is on the campus of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, CA. The archive is funded by NASA and was launched in early December 2011 by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute as part of NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program. In June 2019, the archive's collection of confirmed exoplanets surpassed 4,000.
CHEOPS is a European space telescope. Its objective is to determine the size of known extrasolar planets, which will allow the estimation of their mass, density, composition and their formation. Launched on 18 December 2019, it is the first Small-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision science programme.
The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a ground-based robotic search for exoplanets. The facility is located at Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert in northern Chile, about 2 km from ESO's Very Large Telescope and 0.5 km from the VISTA Survey Telescope. Science operations began in early 2015. The astronomical survey is managed by a consortium of seven European universities and other academic institutions from Chile, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Prototypes of the array were tested in 2009 and 2010 on La Palma, and from 2012 to 2014 at Geneva Observatory.
The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a ground-based robotic dedicated exoplanet observatory. The facility is an array of small-aperture robotic telescopes outfitted for both photometry and high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy located at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. The project's principal investigator is the American astronomer Jason Eastman. The telescopes were manufactured by PlaneWave Instruments.
MINERVA-Australis is a dedicated exoplanet observatory, operated by the University of Southern Queensland, in Queensland, Australia. The facility is located at USQ's Mount Kent Observatory, and saw first light in quarter two 2018. Commissioning of the facility was completed in mid-2019, and the facility was officially launched on 23 July 2019.
Klavdiâ Aleksandrovna Barkhatova, more commonly published as K.A. Barkhatova, was a Soviet astronomer. She became notable for he studies into stellar astronomy and eventually became a highly respected specialist in the field, producing a large body of scientific works. Kourovka Astronomical Observatory in Kourovka, Sverdlovsk Oblast is named in her honor.
