EARTH & SKY - LAKE TEKAPO - MOUNT JOHN OBSERVATORY

The Mount John Observatory is located on the heights west of Lake Tekapo, at an altitude of 1,027 m, on the South Island, in an area of mild skies and weather. In 1960, the University of Pennsylvania received a grant from the American National Science Foundation to establish an astronomical observatory in New Zealand. One of the main reasons for this choice is the very southern latitude of the place, 44° south, which is much lower than most of the other major world observatories in Chile, Australia and South Africa. The Tekapo site is all the more interesting because the weather statistics are very good with a large number of clear nights per year on average, and because the night sky appears very dark, little degraded by the pollution of the city lights. In 1963, the Mount John site was definitively approved and the University of Pennsylvania entered into a partnership agreement with the University of Canterbury to jointly develop the site. The observatory officially began operations on July 10, 1965. In the following years, the number of instruments on site increased according to needs and the work carried out. Today one of the main components of the observatory, the One-Meter McLellan Telescope, built in the workshops of the University of Canterbury (!) in 1986, is used for a wide variety of astronomical research, mainly in the study of the stars and their evolution. Since 1996, a consortium of New Zealand and Japanese researchers has been conducting a specific research programme, so the Japanese government has funded the construction of a 1.8-metre telescope, installed on site since 2004.
Earth & Sky is the company that organizes the guided tours of the observatory at night (the most interesting) and during the day. These visits provide access to the domes and allow observations to be made, usually with equipment installed by the company. As the prices of these visits are not given (about 95 € per person), it is preferable - if possible - to register at the last minute in order to have a precise idea of the weather forecast. For those who only want to access the summit of Mount John without visiting the inside of the domes or observing, it is a priori possible to get in the car during the day by freeing yourself only from a toll of 5 NZD. Finally, it should be noted that it is possible to attend astronomical evenings at another site selected by Earth & Sky, a little more accessible, on Cowan Hill at Cowan's Observatory. They are organized only during the summer months, and for special events (star parties for example), and a dome with a good diameter telescope is available to the public. The site also benefits from a very good sky, protected from city lights, and less subject to difficult climatic conditions (low temperatures)... A good choice for families.