Pic du Midi de Bigorre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Another Pic du Midi is the Pic du Midi d'Ossau.
The Pic du Midi de Bigorre or simply Pic du Midi (altitude 2,877 meters [9,439 feet]) is a mountain in the French Pyrenees famous for its astronomical observatory, the Observatoire du Pic du Midi de Bigorre (Pic du Midi Observatory), part of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (Midi-Pyrénées Observatory).
Construction of the observatory began in 1878, and the dome was completed in 1908. A 106-centimeter (42-inch) telescope was installed in 1963, and was used to take detailed photographs of the surface of the Moon in preparation for the Apollo missions. A new telescope, known as the Bernard Lyot Telescope and nearly twice the size of the original, was placed at the observatory in 1980. It is the largest telescope in France.
The observatory is located at , placing it very close to the Greenwich meridian.
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