Can you visit Byurakan Observatory? Yes
Grounds and historic telescopes visitable; Ambartsumian house museum; evening sky sessions by prior arrangement.
A public night at an observatory usually starts at dusk with a short talk, then a line at the eyepiece of the main telescope for the Moon, a planet or a bright cluster, with volunteers' smaller telescopes set up outside. Dress for the night air even in summer: domes are not heated, so the telescope stays at outside temperature. Many nights sell out or cancel for clouds, so check the observatory's site on the day.
What Byurakan Observatory observes
The list does not describe the instruments at Byurakan Observatory yet; the official site has them.
How dark the sky is at Byurakan Observatory
Byurakan Observatory has no Bortle rating in the list yet. The scale below shows what each class looks like.
Sky brightness and class come from the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness (Falchi et al. 2016, CC BY-NC 4.0), with natural skyglow added, at the coordinates below. Research telescopes are often sited on mountains above the haze, so the real sky can be darker than the map suggests.
Byurakan Observatory among the observatories of Armenia
Green dots are observatories open to the public, blue dots research or private sites, squares dark sky places; select one for its page. See Observatories in Armenia for the full list.
The coordinates on this page point to Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (Wikipedia): 40.331°N, 44.268°E.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Open the larger map · Directions. Mountain observatory roads are often gated after dark; go only on a scheduled public night.
Dark sky places, observatories and clubs near Byurakan Observatory
Byurakan Observatory is about 17 km (11 mi) from Mount Aragats, a Bortle Class 2 dark sky place. See Mount Aragats for camping, where to set up and the sky by season.
Nearest dark sky places
| Place | Where | Bortle | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Aragats | Byurakan, Armenia | 2 | 18 km (11 mi) |
| Lake Sevan | Sevan, Armenia | 3 | 68 km (42 mi) |
| Carahunge (Zorats Karer) | Sisian, Armenia | 2 | 173 km (108 mi) |
| Hatila Valley National Park | Artvin, Turkey | 3 | 234 km (145 mi) |
| Palandoken | Erzurum, Turkey | 5 | 260 km (161 mi) |
| Kackar Mountains | Ayder, Turkey | 3 | 277 km (172 mi) |
Byurakan Observatory record
Every value in the observatories dataset for Byurakan Observatory
| ID | 573 |
|---|---|
| Name | Byurakan Observatory |
| City | Byurakan |
| State | Aragatsotn |
| Country | Armenia |
| Continent | Asia |
| Subcontinent | Central Asia |
| Web | https://www.bao.am/index.php |
| Public | y |
| Elevation | 1400 |
| Lat | 40.33083 |
| Lon | 44.26833 |
| LatLonSpot | Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (Wikipedia) |
| Status | Active |
| StatusNote | Armenian National Academy of Sciences |
| PublicNote | Grounds and historic telescopes visitable; Ambartsumian house museum; evening sky sessions by prior arrangement |
| Sources | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byurakan_Observatory; https://armeniadiscovery.com/en/place/byurakan-astrophysical-observatory |
| GlobalParkID | 5 |
| ParkKm | 17. |
From the site's observatories dataset (observatoriesglobal_q426). Distances are computed from the coordinates.