Bayfordbury Observatory

Bayfordbury Observatory
	Optical domes of the observatory
Organization	University of Hertfordshire
Observatory code	J33
Location	Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°46′30″N 00°05′40″W / 51.77500°N 0.09444°W
Altitude	66 metres (217 ft)
Established	1969
Website	Bayfordbury Observatory
Telescopes
60cm Telescope
60cm Telescope	Planewave CDK24
J.C.D. Marsh Telescope	20" Cassegrain
C.R. Kitchin Telescope	Robotic 16" Meade LX200GPS
I.K.M. Nicolson Telescope	Robotic 16" Meade LX200
R. Priddey Telescope	Robotic 16" Meade LX200-ACF
J. Hough Telescope	Robotic 16" Meade LX200-ACF
R.W. Forrest Telescope	4.5m radio telescope
Vince Telescope	1860s 6.75" refractor
	Location of Bayfordbury Observatory
	Related media on Commons
	[edit on Wikidata]

Bayfordbury Observatory is the

UK. It is located in the relatively dark countryside of Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire, 6 miles from the main university campus in Hatfield

. The first telescope was built in 1969, and since then has been used as a teaching observatory for undergraduate students, staff and student research as well as for public outreach activities.

History

The first telescope, a 16-inch

Hatfield Polytechnic. In 1970 the observatory was formally opened by Richard van der Riet Woolley, then Astronomer Royal

. Over the years the number of telescopes has increased along with the size of astronomy department.

On the 30th anniversary in 2000, the observatory underwent a large renovation. Three new telescope domes and a 4.5m radio telescope were built, as well as a control building, opened and named after Sir Patrick Moore, from where the computer-controlled telescopes can be operated and images analysed.^[1]

Astronomical observatory

The observatory has seven permanently mounted main

spectrographs and video

cameras. A number of smaller telescopes are co-mounted to the main telescopes to act as

H-alpha solar telescopes

.

As well as using optical wavelengths, the observatory also has extensive radio astronomy capabilities. The largest radio telescope is the 4.5m R.W. Forrest telescope which is used for receiving the 21cm Hydrogen line and continuum emission. A further three 3m radio telescopes are soon to operate together as a 115 metre baseline interferometer.^[2]

A nearby university science building houses a

coelostat for observing the Sun, and day and night-time all-sky cameras - two of six the university operates throughout the UK.^[3]

The university organises a variety of public outreach events including monthly open evenings from October till March and group visits for school classes and community groups.[4]

Atmospheric physics remote sensing

Since 2010 the observatory has also grown to serve as a remote sensing station for the university's Centre for Atmospheric & Instrumentation Research. A former telescope dome now houses a remotely operable mount with a micropulse

LIDAR/ceilometer, ultra-sensitive Sun polarimeter and a cirrus-detecting infrared pyrometer

, with further plans to add an infrared spectropolarimeter in the near-future.

The roof of the nearby science building also hosts an automatic Sun photometer and lunar photometer as part of the NASA AERONET network, a scanning infrared radiometer, a pyrgeometer and pyranometer, as well as day and night-time all-sky cameras. ^[5]