MOUNT STROMLO AND SIDING SPRING OBSERVATORIES

pair of astronomical observatories in southeast Australia that are operated by the Australian National University and that together constitute the most important facilities for such observation in the Southern Hemisphere. Mount Stromlo Observatory is situated at an elevation of 768 metres (2,520 feet) on Mt. Stromlo, 10 kilometres (6 miles) west of Canberra. It was founded in 1924 as a centre for solar studies but shifted its emphasis in the 1940s to stellar astronomy. Its main telescope is a 1.9-metre (74-inch) reflector. The Mount Stromlo Observatory's viewing capability was threatened in the 1950s by the lights of the growing city of Canberra, and so a new site was established at an elevation of 1,165 m (3,822 ft) on Siding Spring Mountain, about 31 km (19 mi) from Coonabarabran, New South Wales. The Siding Spring Observatory was originally a field station for the Mount Stromlo site, but it has become in itself one of the most important optical observatories in the world. Its main telescope is the Anglo-Australian Telescope, which was jointly built by Australia and Great Britain and has been operated by them since 1975. The instrument is a 3.9-metre (153-inch) reflector that has notably distortion-free optics and an extremely precise computer-controlled system for pinpointing and tracking celestial objects. The telescope is most useful for viewing distant cosmic objects of extremely faint luminosity. The Siding Spring Observatory also has a 1.2-metre (48-inch) Schmidt telescope, which is owned and operated by the United Kingdom Science Research Council. It has been used to extend the sky survey conducted by its sister instrument, the 1.2-metre (48-inch) Schmidt telescope at the Palomar Observatory, to the southern skies.