PIC DU MIDI DE BIGORRE: OBSERVATING 3 JUNO

Joseph de Ca'th Lon in Pic du Midi

The Observatoire du Pic du Midi or Pic du Midi Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at 2877 meters on top of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre mountain in the French Pyrenees. 

It is part of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées; OMP, which has additional research stations in the southwestern French towns of Tarbes, Lannemezan, and Auch, as well as many partnerships in South America, Africa, and Asia, due to the guardianship it receives from the French Research Institute for Development (IRD).

More information: Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées

Construction of the observatory began in 1878 under the auspices of the Société Ramond, but by 1882 the society decided that the spiralling costs were beyond its relatively modest means, and yielded the observatory to the French state, which took it into its possession by a law of 7 August 1882. The 8 metre dome was completed in 1908, under the ambitious direction of Benjamin Baillaud. It housed a powerful mechanical equatorial reflector which was used in 1909 to formally discredit the Martian canal theory. 

Joseph in Pic du Midi Tourist Residence

A 1.06-meter telescope was installed in 1963, funded by NASA and was used to take detailed photographs of the surface of the Moon in preparation for the Apollo missions. 

In 1965 the astronomers Pierre and Janine Connes were able to formulate a detailed analysis of the composition of the atmospheres on Mars and Venus, based on the infrared spectra gathered from these planets. 

The results showed atmospheres in chemical equilibrium. This served as a basis for James Lovelock, a scientist working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, to predict that those planets had no life, a fact that would be proven and scientifically accepted years after.

More information: UNESCO-Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy

A 2-meter telescope, known as the Bernard Lyot Telescope was placed at the observatory in 1980 on top of a 28-meter column built off to the side to avoid wind turbulence affecting the seeing of the other telescopes. It is the largest telescope in France. The observatory also has a coronagraph, which is used to study the solar corona.

3 Juno Asteroid

Juno, minor-planet designation 3 Juno in the Minor Planet Center catalogue system, is an asteroid in the asteroid belt. 

Juno was the third asteroid discovered, in 1804, by German astronomer Karl Harding. 

It is the 11th-largest asteroid, and one of the two largest stony  asteroids, along with 15 Eunomia. It is estimated to contain 1% of the total mass of the asteroid belt.

Juno was discovered on 1 September 1804, by Karl Ludwig Harding. It was the third asteroid found, but was initially considered to be a planet; it was reclassified as an asteroid and minor planet during the 1850s.

More information: NASA

Juno is one of the larger asteroids, perhaps tenth by size and containing approximately 1% the mass of the entire asteroid belt. It is the second-most-massive S-type asteroid after 15 Eunomia. Even so, Juno has only 3% the mass of Ceres.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards 

and leads us from this world to another. 

Plato