WY/EW-006, Jelm Mountain - Jelm Mountain Infrared Observatory. Southwest of Laramie, Wyoming. Activated twenty times, I won’t be in the area at that time.
Peter KD0YOB
You could take the approach taken for the Lighthouse and Lightship weekend where the Lighthouse (or in this case the observatory) is in view from the operating location (in this case the operating location also needs to be within the AZ of a SOTA summit).
73 Ed.
P.S. Still looking to see if there are any Observatories in Germany that would qualify. Now if you were to extend this to Weather research stations, there are several I can think of …
EDIT/UPDATE: As regards Observatories near/on SOTA summits in Germany, it doesn’t look good - the nearest I have found is the Hoher List Observatory, which “might” be visible from DM/RP-002 Ernstberg - but it certainly isn’t “close” to it. It seems most observatories that haven’t been destroyed or closed down, are located on the flat lands.
W7O/CE-058, Pine Mountain.
Pine Mountain Observatory.
The peak 9A/DH-071, near Croatian city of Split, hosts an observatory known as “Starry village Mosor”. BTW, Split is hometown of our fellow activator Ivica, 9A6CW.
73!
Zoran
YU/JS-062 Bandera summit, Mt Vidojevica
Astronomical station Vidojevica, 5 m below the summit
Nice idea!
Fric YU1WC
Dear Keith and all,
While I find your idea an interesting one as a way to take several activators out to the mountain tops, which is something always highly welcome, particularly for the purpose of my recently proposed TEP WW SOTA WEEK,
I also find it may end up being a bit confusing for the ham community in general and also for the SOTA community in particular, to have both events mixed up at exactly the same time: the equinox.
I have already written not only here on this Reflector about the TEP WW SOTA WEEK, but also to the main radio clubs in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru and Ecuador, as well as to the SOTA Country manager in Mexico, who responded to me positively.
I honestly think that it may well be a good idea to find a way to combine both activities, but this is something we should try to do in an agreed and well coordinated way.
What do you think?
73,
Guru
Hi Keith. Interesting idea, but does it just have to be an astronomical observatory? I wonder it could be expanded to weather?? If so your Mount Washington would certainly fit that rcategory along with our own Ben Nevis OBSERVATORY in GM - now long gone, but some of the ruins are still there.
73
Jack(;>J
GM4COX
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I suspect that this one might be more interesting for the chasers than the activators, there are only a couple of dozen observatories listed and we have thousands of activators, this could lead to crowded activations if the idea becomes popular!
Presumably, in this case, telescopes are allowed? 
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Space Station or Hubble Telescope overhead?
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You might add SP/BZ-050 (Lubomir) to the list. An astronomical observatory had been on the summit from 1922 until 1944, when it was burnt down by German military. A new observatory was built in the same location in 21st century and is operational since 2007.
Here’s an interesting map of observatories world-wide. Info on all the locations can be found here.
Better yet, Google Map of world-wide sites.
Barry N1EU
Thanks Barry, I’ve found one in Germany that is also a SOTA summit - Wendelstein DL/MF-079 . Down near the Bavarian / Austrian border. Crikey it’s 2014 since I’ve been up there - better get back up there before the winter bonus comes to an end. This has an actual cog railway train up to about 100m below the summit (and a reasonably easy path to the actual summit - although checking, the track’s closed at the moment because of the chance of avalanches).
Ed.
Guru, my apologies! I had completely forgotten that the TEP event was proposed for the same time. I agree that having both at the same time might lead to confusion. I think it might be best to find an alternative week for the Observatories event to allow the TEP event to be the main focus on the equinox weeks, unbless you had a strong desire to coordinate the two to be at the same time.
I’ll try to think of another good date option, and if anyone else has ideas please share!
Thanks and 73,
Keith KR7RK
Chews Ridge, W6/SC-040, is near Oliver Observing Station, a private research observatory named after Barney Oliver from Hewlett-Packard.
wunder
Barcroft Station does several kinds of research, including astronomy.
Mt. Barcroft does not appear to be a SOTA summit, but it is fairly near W6/CD-001, White Mountain Peak.
http://www.wmrc.edu/facilities/bar/default.html
wunder
That’s great Barry - I should have thought of the Astronomical Almanac having used that in the past.
With the KML that page gives you it’s simple enough to pull the list into GIS and find all the nearest SOTA summits. It needs some picking through (dupes, dodgy positions) but there are potentially of the order of 50 or so on that list, depending upon how fussy we are about distance. Here’s an example (with a suspect position) - number 50 in distance is Hida Obs. Kamitakara, about 600m from JA/GF-068.
Bit harder in the UK but we do have an amateur facility at Keilder https://kielderobservatory.org which is only a couple of Km from GM/SS-161
Hi Keith,
another SOTA - Observatory is
VE2/ES-003 Mont Mégantic - Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic
SOTA activations are welcome here (during the day) and it is popular with activators.
Malcolm VE2DDZ
4.15km as the crow flies