Stockholm's Observatory

[Astrofriend (Lars)]

I continue my reports from observatories I have visited. This one is very special for me, I did my education in astrophysics at this place in the 1990s. My girlfriend and I took the car this weekend and visited Saltsjöbaden, only 30 km from where we live. We ended the walk up at the Stockholm's Observatory.

Some photos from this beautiful place:
http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/...servatory.html

One of the observatories here is the astrograph which I already earlier had written about.

Lars

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

Hello Lars

A very interesting tour of the observatory, such a shame to see the neglect and damage to the buildings. Are any of the telescopes still being used for observations and research or is the observatory not in use professionally any more. Would be a pity to have, what I'm sure would be fine instruments , not seeing the sky any more.
Lovely scenery of the town and waterways and islands too. Thanks for sharing your tour, a lot of memories rekindled , no doubt.

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

A very interesting tour Lars. Thank you for sharing.

[Astrofriend (Lars)]

Hi,
Nice to hear you like the observatory place.

The university left this place about 20 years ago. When we visited it last weekend it was Sunday and no people there. Only the main building is in use today, it's a school. But there are two astronomy clubs that have permission to use the observatory biuldings, the Newton, Meridian and Schmidt. Maybe they will get the Newton telescope to be usable again. There are no professional work done here anymore.

There are also other buildings here, the old living quarters where the staff lived during observations. And a work shop, very advanced machine tools, but now moved to the new facility.

The last days I have added more text and corrected som in the observatory tour.

Did you see my earlier in deep report about the astrograph ?

http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/...strograph.html

/Lars

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

I have now read your previous report , thanks for the link. It still seems such a shame to have telescopes of their size and quality not being used any more, even if the light pollution compromises their effectiveness. Maybe it would take a lot of work and expense to restore the large refractors to their former glory, unfortunately.

[Astrofriend (Lars)]

Hi Jeff,
I think some astronomy club will take care of this. Lot of ideas how to upgrade the controlsystems so they can be used with todays modern cameras.

Have a new look, I found some wonderful photographs from 1930 and 1952. I have also added more links with information.

http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/...servatory.html

/Lars

[Astrofriend (Lars)]

Hi,
Last weekend we went to a guided tour among old telescopes, the place was Saltsjöbaden in Stockholm, Sweden. The observatory was built during th 1930s.

I have updated my page about this observatory with these new photos of the old telescopes. Earlier I didn't have any photos of the interior. See page 2.2 and 3.2.

http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/...servatory.html

Enjoy the reading !

/Lars

[croweater (Richard)]

Thanks Lars. Enjoyed the read and the photos. The planetary views through the big 50cm refractor must have been quite spectacular. At f16 with the 25mm eyepiece shown giving 320x at that long focal length would assume minimal colour aberration also. What was the maximum magnification you would have used.
Thanks and cheers,Richard

[Astrofriend (Lars)]

Hi Richard,
25 years ago I got a look through the eyepiece of the 8100 refractor, not sure about the focal length of the eyepiece, maybe 25 mm as you wrote. It was Jupiter I looked at, even if I don't remember the details today I remember it was fantastic.

I added this information at the photo of the refractor's backend. I have also added other info from this guided tour and corrected some text.

We all have our dreams, sometimes they come thrue !

/Lars

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

Must have been a wonderful experience to have looked through a telescope such as those large refractors and thanks for the photo tour and descriptions of the observatory , inside and outside.

[Astrofriend (Lars)]

When I visted NOT, The Nordic Telescope, at La Palma 25 years ago I noticed that it was a 2" eyepiece holder to that telescope too. That telescope has a mirror of 2.5 meters diameter.

Next thing to do !

Lars