Karl Schwarzschild Observatory
Encyclopedia
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
observatory
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...
owned and operated by the institute of Thüringer Landessternwarte (Thuringian State Observatory) ’Karl Schwarzschild’ Tautenburg. In 1992 it was acquired by the state of Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
. It has the largest telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and the largest Schmidt camera
Schmidt camera
A Schmidt camera, also referred to as the Schmidt telescope, is a catadioptric astrophotographic telescope designed to provide wide fields of view with limited aberrations. Other similar designs are the Wright Camera and Lurie-Houghton telescope....
of the world (2 metres), which was produced by VEB Zeiss Jena (the branch of Zeiss located in Jena in what was then East Germany). It is located in Tautenburg
Tautenburg
Tautenburg, a municipality in the Saale-Holzland district in Thuringia in Germany, houses the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(10 kilometres north-east of Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
), was founded in 1960 and named after the celebrated physicist Karl Schwarzschild
Karl Schwarzschild
Karl Schwarzschild was a German physicist. He is also the father of astrophysicist Martin Schwarzschild.He is best known for providing the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-rotating mass, which he accomplished...
.
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
HD 13189
HD 13189
HD 13189 is an 8th magnitude star in Triangulum constellation. It is an orange bright giant star located 603 light years away. The mass is 3.5 times the Sun, which indicated that it was a B-type star when it was a main-sequence star...
.
Geographical location:
- Latitude: 50° 58´ 48.4" North
- Longitude: 11° 42´ 40.2" East
- Declination axis: 341 m above sea level