Introduction

What is the Taurus Hill Observatory?

The Taurus Hill Observatory is owned by an amateur astronomical association Warkauden Kassiopeia. The Observatory itself is located on the top of Hill Härkämäki which is in the proximity of the village of Kangaslampi. The village of Kangaslampi is located only 6 kilometers away from the Observatory and the city of Varkaus is located about 30 kilometers away. The nearest residence is about 0.6 kilometers away from the Observatory which makes possible for the area to be totally free from the light pollution. The co-ordinates for the Observatory are 62° 18.896" Northern Latitude and 28° 23.357" Eastern Longitude.

The construction of the Observatory began at the end of the summer 2002 and it was completed in the early spring of the year 2004.

The base of the Observatory building is made from wood but the most notable part of the Observatory is its dome which is made from aluminium plates. The top of the dome rises up to 5.5 meters height from the groundlevel. In the proximity of the Observatory is the service building which will be the Research Center of the Taurus Hill Observatory. There is also a "laavu" in the proximity of the Observatory which is our camp-fire place. For public events there is so called "kota" that Taurus Hill Observatory rents for companies, private persons and other associations.

The main telescope of the Observatory is 12" Meade LX200GPS (UHTC) which is Schmidt-Cassegrain type telescope. Taurus Hill Observatory has also a smaller 5" Meade LXD55 EMC achromatic refractor for planet and Sun observations. LXD55 is also used for public "star shows" due its mobility. The 12" Meade LX200GPS -telescope was bought for the observatory in the end of the year 2002 and 5" Meade LXD55 donated to observatory in the year 2004. You can find a full list of the Taurus Hill Observatory's equipments from the observatorys equipment list.

More pictures from the Taurus Hill Observatory can be found from our observatory's gallery. There You can find pictures from different construction phases and nearby nature. Please visit in our gallery. If You like to see more pictures taken by members of the Warkauden Kassiopeia, You can visit in our main gallery -site. Unfortunately the gallery is only in finnish, so please be patient while surfing in our gallery.

Research as a main goal

In the near future one of the main goals for Warkauden Kassiopeia is to begin the real research in the field of the astronomy. Possible subjects of the research might be the comets, the variable stars, the supernovae, the minor planets or any object which can be researched by an amateur astronomers. Our Meade telescope makes the research work possible with the SBIG ST-8XME CCD -camera which we purchased in spring of the year 2005 and fully automated robotic mounting system, Paranoumt ME, which was purchased in autumm 2005. Taurus Hill Observatory has also a permanent observatory code given by Minor Planet Center. The code is A95 and official name of the observatory is "Taurus Hill Observatory".

Taurus Hill Observatory is also a member of the Finnish Observatory Net that helps to organize observing campains with other finnish amateur observatories and professional astronomers.