*** Welcome to piglix ***

Geneva Observatory

Geneva Observatory
The Geneva Observatory in August 2013
The Geneva Observatory (August 2013)
Organization University of Geneva
Code 517
Location Sauverny, Versoix, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland
Coordinates 46°18′32″N 6°08′06″E / 46.309°N 6.135°E / 46.309; 6.135 (Geneva Observatory)Coordinates: 46°18′32″N 6°08′06″E / 46.309°N 6.135°E / 46.309; 6.135 (Geneva Observatory)
Established 1967 (1772)
Website www.unige.ch/sciences/astro/en/
Commons page
[]
(Old) Observatory of Geneva
Organization University of Geneva
Code 189
Location Geneva, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland
Coordinates 46°11′59″N 6°09′08″E / 46.1998°N 6.1523°E / 46.1998; 6.1523 (Observatory of Geneva (former location))
Established 1772
Closed 1969
Website www.unige.ch/sciences/astro/
Commons page
[]

The Geneva Observatory (French: Observatoire de Genève, German: Observatorium von Genf) is an astronomical observatory at Sauverny (CH) in the municipality of Versoix, Canton of Geneva, in Switzerland. It shares its buildings with the astronomy department of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. It has been active in discovering exoplanets, in stellar photometry, modelling stellar evolution, and has been involved in the European Space Agency's Hipparcos, INTEGRAL, Gaia, and Planck missions.

In 1995, the first exoplanet of a main-sequence star, 51 Pegasi b, had been discovered by two scientist of the observatory, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, using the radial velocity method with the 1.9-metre telescope at Haute-Provence Observatory in France.

Besides a 1-metre telescope at the French Haute-Provence Observatory, the Geneva Observatory also operates the 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope. In cooperation with the Belgian University of Liège, it supports TRAPPIST, a 0.6-metre telescope specialized in observing comets and exoplanets. Both telescopes are located at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. In 2010, TRAPPIST was also involved in the controversial size-comparison of the two dwarf planets Eris and Pluto. The Geneva Observatory also participates in the Next-Generation Transit Survey, an international collaboration with several Universities from the United Kingdom as well as from Chile and Germany. Located at Paranal Observatory in Chile, the ground-based, robotic search facility for exoplanets began science operations in early 2015.


...
Wikipedia

...