Fort Churchill Magnetic Observatory

Fort Churchill Magnetic Observatory sits near Churchill, Manitoba, in northern Canada, where it has recorded the strength and direction of Earth's magnetic field for decades.

About Fort Churchill Magnetic Observatory

This is a geomagnetic observatory rather than an optical one: instead of telescopes, it houses instruments that continuously record the local magnetic field. It is now maintained by Natural Resources Canada as part of the national geomagnetic monitoring network.

History

Photographic recording of the geomagnetic field began here in 1957 under the Defence Research Northern Laboratory, originally to support the Fort Churchill Rocket Program. The recording building went up that same year, about 1.2km north of the airfield, followed by a dedicated, entirely non-magnetic absolute observations building in November 1964. Responsibility passed to the National Research Council of Canada in 1965, then to the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys (later the Geological Survey of Canada) in 1972. Instrumentation was modernised over time, from the AMOS Mk I digital system in 1971 to the AMOS Mk III in 1981 and the INTERMAGNET-compliant CANMOS system in 1991.

Location & getting there

The observatory is located near Churchill, Manitoba, on Precambrian sedimentary and volcanic rock, in a remote part of northern Canada near Hudson Bay.

Visiting Fort Churchill Magnetic Observatory

This is a working scientific research station rather than a public viewing site. If you are researching geomagnetic monitoring in Canada, Natural Resources Canada's geomagnetism program is the best source for current access information.

See your named star from here

While this station studies Earth's magnetism rather than the stars, the far-northern skies above Churchill are still real sky above your named star's coordinates. Name a star or look up its position in the star catalogue.