Volkssternwarte Kempten

In the Allgäu region of Bavaria, Volkssternwarte Kempten has grown from a youth-hostel observation hut into a fully equipped public observatory run by local astronomy enthusiasts.

About Volkssternwarte Kempten

The observatory sits at an elevation of about 725 metres and is operated by Volkssternwarte-Kempten e.V. Its building, roughly six by three and a half metres, has a wooden roof that rolls back to open the sky, and it houses several telescopes, including a 30cm Newtonian, a 20cm Newtonian, a 10.5cm Fraunhofer refractor and a 45cm Newtonian reflector that has been in use since 1999.

History

The site's origins trace back to the 1960s, when the German Youth Hostel Association set up observation stations nearby, including a rolling-roof wooden structure. In 1983, the Astronomical Working Group of Kempten's Adult Education Centre took over a long-unused building, and the Kempten Astronomy Association emerged from that group in 1986. Construction of the current observatory began in 1989 and was completed in 1991; the original site saw its last observation in October 2011, and a new observatory building is planned for the Kempten area.

Location & getting there

Volkssternwarte Kempten is located in Kempten, in the Allgäu region of Bavaria, southern Germany.

Visiting Volkssternwarte Kempten

Check the observatory's website for current opening times and public observing evenings before planning a visit.

See your named star from here

A star named through Star Register can be found from Kempten or anywhere else in the world using its coordinates. Browse the catalogue to see how it works.