Eyrewell Magnetic Observatory

Northwest of Christchurch at West Melton, in New Zealand's Canterbury region, Eyrewell Magnetic Observatory has been quietly recording the Earth's magnetic field for decades.

About Eyrewell Magnetic Observatory

Eyrewell is New Zealand's national geomagnetic observatory and holds the country's oldest continuously running magnetometer. It supplies high-quality variometer data to INTERMAGNET, the global geomagnetic data network, and provides one of only two Southern Hemisphere contributions to the planetary Kp index, a widely used measure of geomagnetic activity.

History

The observatory has operated at its current West Melton site since 1978, when it relocated about 50 km from an earlier site at Amberley that had been in use since 1928. The move away from Amberley was prompted by interference from a DC electric tram supply, and later by increasing development near the site. In 2023, the Magnetometer Array for New Zealand Aotearoa (MANA) was completed, adding five new variometer sites to complement Eyrewell's long-running record.

Location & getting there

The observatory is in Oceania, in New Zealand, at West Melton in the Canterbury region, northwest of Christchurch.

Visiting Eyrewell Magnetic Observatory

As a scientific monitoring station, Eyrewell is not set up as a public visitor site, though its data is freely available online through GeoNet's geomagnetic dashboard.

See your named star from here

Eyrewell measures the invisible magnetic field around us with precision instruments; a star named through Star Register comes with its own precise coordinates in the visible sky above. Name a star or browse the star catalogue to find yours.