Welcome to the Sun Hill Observatory Home Page
The Sun Hill Observatory is a part of Astronomical Institute of the Tararingapatam University
History: The Observatory was established in the year 1235 by the missionary Jiri Sosacek
Staff: Five directors, one secretary, two research scientists, one night assistant, one ombudsman
Instrumentation: 20mm refracting telescope (focal length 16cm), two sextants, one circumgenital. The 20mm refractor has magnifying power of ten, so for example a one-Tararingapatam-crown coin observed with this telescope looks like ten-crown coin (or a one-year-old boy viewed through this telescope looks like ten-years-old boy). We had also large binocular telescope (30mm, 6x) at our Observatory. Last year we lent it to one Soyuz crew and they have lost it during their extra vehicular activity. Thus we (unintentionaly) joined the group of a few institutions that have its own space telescope but because it is not equiped with remote control we can make no use of it.
Research interests: Variable stars, eclipsing binaries
Current activities: Waiting for clean sky
Publications:
International collaboration: We intend to take part in two large multi-national projects named "Precise determination of geographic longitude of the North Pole" and "Observation of occultations of the Moon by stars".
Selected papers: Cotoleti J., Kamtocumis M.: Two new W UMa-stars with amplitudes greater than 2 magnitudes. J. Astron. Sci., 89, 1992, 220.
Man of the year: This honorary title now belongs to Dr. Hned Prestanzvanit for the development of reliable method which enables to distinguish between sun spots and fly spots on photographs of solar disk.
News and views: During the last five years we had no clean night. This hampered our research work substantially. Therefore we are looking for an experienced observer who is able to observe variable stars even during completely cloudy nights. Another possibility is to hire a dozen of skilled cloudsweepers. However, until now no decision has been made on this issue. Potential applicants for employment should be aware of economic situation in Tararingapatam state (see Perspectives).
Perspectives: This year total R&D budget of our state amounts to 200 million Tararingapatam crowns (TRC) of which 10 million is allocated to the subchapter "Astronomy". Our Observatory gained 2 million TRC (approximately 2 USD). We hope that the new government under the leadership of our democratically elected dictator will pay more attention to the needs of the Observatory.
FAQ: Among questions we are frequently asked is why we have our home page on the server of the Czech firm Mamedia Ltd.
FGA: Among answers we frequently give is that servers in Tararingapatam are too expensive for us and our own fifth generation steam computer is not suitable for this purpose. The telephone line is often disrupted by wild rodents that are abundant on the slopes of Sun Hill so the only reliable connection with the rest of the world provides the secretary Broody Flatfield and her horse. On the horseback of our secretary messages arrive at the nearest village downhill and then they are shifted to the city of Tararingapatam and sent by e-mail to a Czech friend of Mr. Jiri Sosacek who places them on this page.
Technical notes:
Connections:
You are 1st visitor of this page in 20th century
Total number of visitors could be: 884
This page was established 29-08-1497 and last modified 27-10-1997
It is recorded in
