Talk:List of astronomical observatories

[Untitled]
Please see WikiProject Telescopes for a suggested format for telescopes, astronomical observatories, and astronomical surveys. --zandperl 13:30, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Table of contents
If we're splitting by letter, this page should get a table of contents too. --Chris Dolan 01:40, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Go for it.   &mdash;Michael | Talk 02:17, Mar 17, 2004 (UTC)

Color of table
Why is this page black? RickK | Talk 04:08, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Watchoo talkin bout Willis? This is what I see on my browser:




 * &mdash;Michael | Talk 04:32, Mar 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * Likely my fault, I guess. What browser?  I made the letters be sections in the table, which may have been a mistake.  Dunno.  Advice/corrections appreciated. --Chris Dolan 04:48, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm using IE 6.0. The table is black. RickK | Talk 03:08, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Fixed.   &mdash;John | Talk 03:40, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Now it's an ugly gray :), but at least it's not black. RickK | Talk 03:45, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Kamioka Observatory
I give up trying to add Kamioka Observatory to the K section, is it really necessary to have this unwiki-like table? -Wikibob | Talk 22:55, 2004 Mar 18 (UTC)


 * Done. See meta:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables.   &mdash;John | Talk 23:02, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I really think the table is overkill and makes it hard to edit. RickK | Talk 02:23, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. It only has (at most) three bits of information per row. Seems it would work much better, and not suffer from potential formatting problems (as evidenced above), if it were just a list, like so:


 * Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (Amanda)
 * 2002
 * Antarctic
 * Apache Point Observatory
 * Sunspot, New Mexico (USA)
 * Arecibo Observatory
 * Arecibo, Puerto Rico

Or even:


 * Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (Amanda), 2002, Antarctic
 * Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, New Mexico (USA)
 * Arecibo Observatory, Arecibo, Puerto Rico

Wapcaplet 02:32, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Go for it (first format). Operational date is kinda irrelevant, place is not.   &mdash;John | Talk 02:37, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree that dates are unnecessary, but locations are important. They can help distinguish between ambiguous telescopes--people sometimes know where telescopes are, they NEVER know when they were built. --zandperl 11:26, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Should there also be a bit for the institution (ie. NOAO or university affiliation) that operates the observatory? The first format above seems more readable, but the second format might be better as the list grows longer. The operational date is somewhat important for the early observatories and the articles for those often include a major history section. --Mu301 11:46, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Can the Manila Observatory also be added? Founded 1865 in Manila, Philippines. Moved to Quezon City in the 1950s because the original site was bombed by the Japanese in WW2.

Criteria for list
Is this list only ground-based astronomical observatories? I don't see HST or SST listed. If ground-based only, we should specify so in the introductory paragraph. --zandperl 14:14, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This list surely should be for observatories of historical or scientific significance, professional research observatories, observatories owned and/or run by astronomical societies or maybe observatories run by educational institutions. If there are no basic criteria then every amateur observatory world-wide will be here. Thoughts? --Gmoney484 19:37, 28 July 2010 )UTC)

Is the IAU number available?
If so, it probably needs a specific column in the table. It's the only unique identifier I'm aware of, and harvard has a list of Observatory codes http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/ObsCodes.html, unfortunately, the longitude is listed, but I don't see an explicit latitute or city/country name. Wikip rhyre (talk) 08:04, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

List is now tableized
I think it looks a little better now, before there seemed to be no cohesive format. It still needs a fair bit of work including filling in dates, and standardizing locations. I think it is important to have a year of establishment for this list because of the wide range of dates. That way someone could tell at a glance weather the entry is a modern observatory or an historic observatory such as Uraniborg.

HST and SST are not listed but SOHO is. I would vote for adding the others as well, any other opinions? --Nebular110 23:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Sproul Observatory
Why was Sproul Observatory replaced with Springwater Observatory, not the same.

AppleRaven 03:15, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

listing by location would be more useful

List of observatories
List of observatories redirects to this article. This seems to be wrong since there are many other types of observatories than just astronomical ones such as observatories for climatology, geology, meteorology, oceanography, and volcanology. Maybe a new list or disambigulation should be put up to fix that redirect. 69.72.2.71 (talk) 21:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Blue on blue lettering?
OUCH! My old eyeballs can't take blue lettering on dark blue background. So I converted the offenders to white on blue. Here is a sample of one of the source codes for anyone else who needs them.

If you need to know more about doing this the main reference is Colours. Regards to all. Have a good day.Trilobitealive (talk) 00:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
 * European Gravitational Observatory
 * 2003 ]]
 * Cascina, Italy ]]

Gaia space observatory
Shall Gaia from ESA be added to this list? - DutchTreat (talk) 13:12, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Need to add Mcmath-pierce solar observatory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMath%E2%80%93Pierce_solar_telescope Jim Johnson 17:17, 5 December 2022 (UTC)