The old Palais Longchamp facilities are a noted tourist attraction in Marseille, and a planetarium was also added in 2001.[1][2] One of the noted exhibits is the Foucault glass-mirror telescope, and various items from centuries of astronomical activities.
Foucault's telescope is a noted historical example because it was the forerunner of the modern style of big reflecting telescopes which use a minute layer of metal on a figured piece of glass. Before this, the main technology was to make the whole mirror of metal, and it would really be another half-century before silvered glass mirrors really caught on for astronomy. A major change in the 20th century was to shift from using solution to coat the glass with silver to using a vapor deposition process.
18th century
The observatory was founded in 1701 in montee des Accoules (this is a location near Vieux Port, Marseille, France).[3] Antoine Laval was the first director.[3]
The 1761 Transit of Venus was observed from the Marseilles Observatory.[4] A telescope 6 feet long made by James Short was used for this observation.[4] These observations were conducted by the astronomer Louis Lagrange.[4]
In 1789 Jean-Louis Pons began work at Marseille Obs. as a doorkeeper, but he also received lesson in astronomy; by 1801 he discovered his first comet.[5] Pons would become one of the most prolific comet discovers, finding 37 in all a significant portion of all comet discoveries for a quarter of a century.[5]
Pons also discovered comets that came to be known by other names including Encke's Comet, Comet Crommelin, and Biela's Comet.[5] This is not unusual as comet discoveries are sometimes later determined to be re-discoveries of previously observed comets or co-discoveries (discovered at the same time by others). Similarly, some comets were named for the first person to compute the comet's orbit, as in the case of Halley's comet.[5]
In 1863 Marseilles Observatory became a branch of the Paris Observatory.[8] This led to a new building inaugurated by 1864, designed by the architect of Notre Dame de la Garde, also the 80cm reflector was installed by that year[8] (at the Palais Longchamp site).
Work continued on improvements and by 1866 a Comet Seeker telescope of 18cm aperture by Martin, and 25.8cm (10.25") aperture refractor by Merz by 1872.[8] The Merz refractor was on equatorial mounting with governor done by Foucault.[8]
Foucault operated his 80cm silver-on-glass reflector at Marseille Observatory,[9] a telescope with aperture 80cm (31.5 inches) from about 1862 to its retirement in 1965.[10][11] The telescope was noted for being a pioneering design, that used silver-coated glass in a reflecting telescope.[10]
There was also instruments and facilities for magnetic studies.[8]
1872 Marseilles reported several new nebula discovered using the Eichens searcher.[12]
In 1873 Marseilles Observatory announced the discovery of 300 new nebula.[13] Of these 75 had there positions accurately cataloged, which was done by comparing the location of the nebula with previously cataloged stars of known position.[13]
In 1873 Marseilles Observatory detached from Paris Observatory.[14]
In 1874 the Comet C/1874 H1 was discovered from the observatory.
In 1965 the Foucault 80cm reflecting telescope was retired.[11]
In 1989 the Marseille telescope was completed at the observatory, and then sent to the southern hemisphere later that year.[16] The telescope is a reflecting telescope with 36cm (~14.2") diameter mirror with a low-expansion glass-ceramic and of the Richey-Chrétien type.[16]
Starting in 1990 Marseille Observatory had a study of H alpha (H-alpha (Hα)) in the southern galactic plane.[17] This included observations of the Magellanic Clouds also.[17] This study used the 36cm Marsielle telescope at La Silla observatory in the southern hemisphere for data.[18] The telescope was equipped with both a photon counter and a Fabry-Perot interferometer for this study.[18]
In 1999 a Marseilles Observatory published a study on simulating the formation of proto-planets and planetesimals with a large planetary body.[19] This simulation used the GRAPE-4 system.[19]
2000s
Marseille Observatory use the GRAPE, a gravity simulation software to simulate planetary formation
In 2000, Marseille Observatory merged with the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique Spatiale to become the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) within the broader Observatoire Astronomique Marseille Provence which also included the Haute-Provence Observatory.
In 2008, LAM was relocated to a new 10,000 square meter facility in the Technopôle Chateau-Gombert in Marseille. The facility includes two major technology platforms for qualification of space instruments and for fabrication and metrology of optical mirrors. LAM astronomers specialize in cosmology and galaxy evolution, exoplanets and Solar System, and R&D in optics and instrumentation.
In 2012, the Observatoire Astronomique Marseille Provence merged with other earth-sciences research institutes from Aix-Marseille University and became a new entity called the Observatoire des Science de l'Univers Institut Pythéas (OSU-IP) which now includes 6 major labs for earth and universe sciences: CEREGE, IMBE, MIO, LAM. LPED, MIO as well as the Haute-Provence Observatory.
Marseille Observatory Palais Longchamp facilities
Palais Longchamp
The old Marseille Observatory site is a noted tourist attraction in the Palais Longchamp area.[20] Exhibits include the Foucault telescope, and there is also a planetarium.[6] The planetarium has 30-seats and opened in 2001.[2]
The facilities at Plateau longchamp date the 1860s, the older site was at Vieux Port.[14]
Jean-Louis Pons was a French astronomer. Despite humble beginnings and being self-taught, he went on to become the greatest visual comet discoverer of all time: between 1801 and 1827 Pons discovered thirty-seven comets, more than any other person in history.
The Paris Observatory, a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its historic building is on the Left Bank of the Seine in central Paris, but most of the staff work on a satellite campus in Meudon, a suburb southwest of Paris.
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory from 1902 until his death in 1932.
William Robert Brooks was a British-born American astronomer, mainly noted as being one of the most prolific discoverers of new comets of all time, second only to Jean-Louis Pons.
Grigory Abramovich Shajn was a Soviet/Russian astronomer. In modern English transliteration, his surname would be given as Shayn, but his astronomical discoveries are credited under the name G. Shajn. Nonetheless, his last name is sometimes given as Schayn.
Andrew Ainslie Common FRS (1841–1903) was an English amateur astronomer best known for his pioneering work in astrophotography.
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.
Edwin Alfred Holmes (1839–1919) was an English amateur astronomer who is best remembered as the discoverer of Comet 17P/Holmes.
Markree Observatory was an astronomical observatory in County Sligo, Ireland. The asteroid 9 Metis was discovered from this observatory in 1848 by Cooper's assistant Andrew Graham using a comet seeker telescope. The observatory was also home to the largest refractor of the early 1830s, which had a 13.3-inch (340 mm) aperture Cauchoix of Paris lens; the largest in the world at that time. The observatory also housed a number of instruments and was operated to varying degrees throughout the 19th century.
A comet seeker is a type of small telescope adapted especially to searching for comets: commonly of short focal length and large aperture, in order to secure the greatest brilliancy of light. This style of telescope was used to discover the asteroid 9 Metis in 1848.
The Royal Observatory of Belgium, has been situated in the Uccle municipality of Brussels, Belgium, since 1890. It was first established in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode in 1826 by King William I of the Netherlands under the impulse of Adolphe Quetelet. It was home to a 100 cm (39 in) diameter aperture Zeiss reflector in the first half of the 20th century, one of the largest telescopes in the world at the time. It now owns a variety of other astronomical instruments, such as astrographs, as well as a range of seismograph equipment.
The Bordeaux Observatory is an astronomical observatory affiliated with the University of Bordeaux. Built in Floirac, France in 1893 its lenses were focused between +11 and +17 degrees declination. Until 1970 it had taken over 4,000 photographic plates. Bordeaux Observatory is home to a large collection of instruments and archives from well over a century of astronomical activities. Until the 2016 it was actively used until the institution moved to a new location at the University. In the French language the name is Observatoire de Bordeaux.
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 and 2010, and was donated to the observatory by Edward Crossley, its namesake.
Puckett Observatory is a private astronomical observatory located in the state of Georgia. It is owned and operated by Tim Puckett. Its primary observation goals are the study of comets and the discovery of supernovae. To facilitate the latter goal it sponsors the Puckett Observatory World Supernova Search whose astronomers have discovered 369 supernovae.
Ian Stewart Glass is an infrared astronomer and scientific historian living in Cape Town, South Africa.
Robert Jonckheere was a French astronomer. He is known for his discovery of more than 3350 double stars. A. R. Jonckheere, psychologist and statistician at University College London, was his son.
273P/Pons–Gambart, also called Comet Pons-Gambart, is a short-period comet in a retrograde orbit first discovered on June 21, 1827 by Jean-Louis Pons and Jean-Félix Adolphe Gambart. It has a 186 year orbit and will next come to perihelion around August 2191. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with. It was lost and was not recovered until November 7, 2012, when amateur astronomer Rob Matson discovered a comet, and it was identified that the pre-recovery short-arc orbital calculations for Pons-Gambart were completely wrong because the comet only had a 1-month observation arc with poor data. It was last observed in April 2014 when it was 5.8 AU (870 million km) from the Sun.
Wentworth Erck FRAS was an Irish astronomer, poor-law guardian and magistrate. In astronomy, his most notable observations and measurements were of the solar disc and binary stars.
Meudon Great Refractor is a double telescope with lenses, in Meudon, France. It is a twin refracting telescope built in 1891, with one visual and one photographic, on a single square-tube together on an equatorial mount, inside a dome. The Refractor was built for the Meudon Observatory, and is the largest double doublet refracting telescope in Europe, but about the same size as several telescopes in this period, when this style of telescope was popular. Other large telescopes of a similar type include the James Lick telescope (91.4), Potsdam Great Refractor (80+50 cm), and the Greenwich 28 inch refractor (71.1 cm).
1 2 3 4 5 6 Roemer, Elizabeth (1960). "1960ASPL....8..159R Page 159". Leaflet of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 8 (371): 159. Bibcode:1960ASPL....8..159R.
↑ Tobin, William (1987), "Foucault's invention of the silvered-glass reflecting telescope and the history of his 80-cm reflector at the observatoire de Marseille", Vistas in Astronomy, 30 (2): 153–184, Bibcode:1987VA.....30..153T, doi:10.1016/0083-6656(87)90015-8
1 2 Gascoigne, S. C. B. (1996). "1996QJRAS..37..101G Page 101". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 37: 101. Bibcode:1996QJRAS..37..101G.
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