staernwarte Gersbach

Mai 2021: It fills us with special pride to provide the tools for a new, young generation of researchers with our telescope and/or observatory constructions, enabling groundbreaking discoveries in the field of astronomy. With their work on exoplanets, the students of HTG Lörrach Student Research Center phaenovum successfully detected exoplanets using the transit method and emerged as state winners in Baden-Württemberg. We warmly congratulate Annalotta Hipp (15), Johanna Hipp (13), and Nicholas Dahlke (14) on this outstanding achievement and hope they will remain dedicated to astronomy for a long time.

We have linked the work of these ambitious young students, which they completed without external help, here. The official list of winners from the state competition "Schüler experimentieren BW 2021" can be found at www.jugend-forscht-bw.de

November 2021: In November 2021, after two COVID-related delays, the "staernwarte" was finally ceremoniously opened. Read this detailed report here:
www.staernwarten.de/2021/11/02/staernwarten-eroeffnet-regenreich-und-erleuchtend-zugleich

Original Post from June 2020:

Fans of entrepreneur Elon Musk had long marked May 27, 2020, in their calendars. On this day, NASA astronauts were to fly to the ISS for the first time with the commercial company SpaceX. For us, too, the day had been eagerly anticipated. Our goal: promoting practical astronomy among children and young people! As a partner for our mission, we – the Student Research Center phaenovum in Lörrach – chose Baader Planetarium; and to preempt the conclusion: we couldn’t have imagined a better or more pleasant partner for preparing and executing this journey to the stars.

But let’s take it step by step. For 15 years, the non-profit association phaenovum has been successfully promoting course and project work for children and young people in the natural sciences (see www.phaenovum.de). Extending this dual educational concept to the unfortunately neglected field of astronomy in schools was a natural next step. Two years of application writing, convincing sponsors, and building passed. Since no common location for both program variants – low-threshold courses and astrophysics project work – could be found, the Baader team (Johannes Baader and Goran Aladzic) delivered equipment to two observatories on May 27, 2020: The "staernwarte Kaltenbach" in Lörrach received five mobile telescopes, including accessories: SCT 8'' on AVX mounts. These telescopes will be used in future for introductory courses in stargazing and astrophotography near the student research center.

The "staernwarte Gersbach", built in the form of a roll-off roof hut and located 20 km from Lörrach in the heights of the beautiful Black Forest, received equipment that would have been reserved for professionals just a few years ago. Students and teachers can look forward to a Planewave CDK-17'' Astrograph and a parallel-mounted TEC-APO 140 mm Refractor. This is a wonderful combination for visual observations and astrophotographic projects! Both telescopes are mounted on a 10Micron GM 3000 HPS Mount. Thanks to the absolute encoders integrated into both axes, laborious guiding can be dispensed with. Additionally, with the installed Baader Observatory Management System, remote control of the instruments in the club's observatory will be possible from Lörrach in the future. For project work, there is also a DADOS Spectrograph and complete equipment for solar observation in white light and H-alpha (Baader Herschel Prism and SolarSpectrum H-Alpha Filter).

The professionalism with which the Baader team assembled the individual components was impressive. Despite wearing masks due to COVID, all astronomical questions from two amateur astronomers involved in the project were answered with angelic patience, and the sand-filled steel pier was immediately leveled.

The full capability of the Baader team shone when the first celestial object was targeted with the mount, which had only been installed by sight. Even before the polar alignment and the creation of an initial star model, the 10Micron accurately pointed to the Sun, which could be immediately observed using a Herschel prism. By creating an initial model with 10 stars, the mount's precision could already be adjusted to below 15 arcseconds on the first clear night.

After a short night (Albireo could be split with wonderful clarity in the TEC, while M51, M27, and M81 were quickly captured with the CDK 17'' on the CMOS camera), the next morning included a brief introduction to various software components (Maxim DL, SpecTrack, Backup), a trial connection of the DADOS Spectrograph to the CDK 17'', and an explanation of potential mirror cleaning procedures. No question was left unanswered! In the afternoon, the first students, also wearing masks, stopped by. After years of using an SCT 8'' and refracting telescopes generously loaned by the House of Astronomy, this was a new era for them as well! Nothing now stands in the way of successful astrophysical ae project work.

Incidentally, the planned launch of the SpaceX rocket to the ISS on this day had to be postponed by four days due to a thunderstorm. However, we were already able to focus on the space station in the evening, thanks to the new Gersbach "Ferrari of the skies" – thankfully without interference from Starlink satellites!

PS: We thoroughly enjoyed the two days with the Baader team, both professionally and personally. In the following week, any questions arising from subsequent nights were answered in a phone call – a fantastic and exemplary customer service! A heartfelt thank you to Mammendorf! For us, May 27, 2020, remains a historic day, even without the SpaceX launch.

Pirmin Gohn, Herbert Weniger, Hermann Klein

Additional Images of the Assembly and Completed Telescope Installation