Višnjan Observatory

High on the Tičan hill above Istria in Croatia, Višnjan Observatory has grown from a village stargazing club into one of Europe's most productive asteroid-hunting facilities, still run by the astronomers who founded it.

About Višnjan Observatory

Višnjan Observatory is operated by Astronomsko društvo Višnjan, a non-profit astronomical society with roughly fifty years of history, and is headed by Korado Korlević, a prolific discoverer of minor planets. The observatory was officially registered as a public institution in 1992.

History

The observatory originally operated in the village of Višnjan itself, but growing light pollution forced it to stop observing there in 2001. Construction of a new facility began in 1998, and in 2009 the observatory relocated to the hill of Tičan, a few kilometres north of the village. Its original observation code, 120, was succeeded by a new code, L01, registered in October 2017.

Telescopes & research

The observatory's main instrument is a one-metre telescope named Dagor, installed in 2002, which achieved first light in 2014 and became fully operational by late 2017. Višnjan specialises in tracking small bodies of the Solar System, including asteroids, comets and meteoroids, with a particular focus on objects that could pose an impact risk to Earth. The team has discovered 1,447 asteroids and two comets, and has provided more than 1,900 orbit determinations for potentially hazardous objects, ranking third in the world for asteroid orbit publications over a recent two-year period.

Location & getting there

Višnjan Observatory sits on the Tičan hill in Istria, in northwestern Croatia, a rural, dark-sky setting well suited to its asteroid-tracking work.

Visiting Višnjan Observatory

Details of specific opening hours are best confirmed directly through the observatory's website before a visit, but the site has a long tradition of public outreach alongside its research programme.

See your named star from here

Given its dedication to tracking small Solar System bodies, Višnjan's telescope is usually pointed at faint, fast-moving objects rather than fixed stars. Still, a star you name through Star Register can be found from Istria or anywhere else using its coordinates. See the catalogue for examples.