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 lean-to (or laavu in Finnish) in the proximity of the Observatory which is our lean-to camp-fire place. For small public events there is so called hut (or kota in Finnish) and for larger ones there is 125m^2 Clubhouse that Taurus Hill Observatory rents for companies, private persons and other associations.

The main telescopes of the Taurus Hill Observatory are 16″ Meade ACF LX800, f/8 and 14″ Celestron C14 XLT both mounted to the Paramount ME robotic mounts. Taurus Hill Observatory has also a 12″ Meade LX200GPS (UHTC) Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and 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. The Celestron C14 XLT was bought early in the year 2009. You can find a full list of the Taurus Hill Observatory’s equipments from the observatorys equipment list.