Today we access the Universe with modern international large observatories that become increasingly bigger and powerful. Earth-based observatories are often located at remote sites on Earth where only very few disturbing factors can corrupt the measurements: far away from the light pollution of big cities in deserts, on high mountains and at places with stable weather conditions. Astronomical observation also takes place from space: here the disturbing influence of the atmosphere, which even shields of some parts of the electromagnetic spectrum like X-rays completely, is totally eliminated. Space observatories record data which is transmitted to Earth for analysis. The Potsdam institutions contribute to a significant number of telescopes world-wide and in space through instrumentation and research projects. The following list gives an overview.
Facilities on Earth
Advanced LIGO
- Gravitational-wave detector with facilities in Hanford and in Livingston, USA
- Participation: AEI
- Website of LIGO Hanford
- Website of LIGO Livingston
![VERITAS experiment (Credit: VERITAS)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_veritas_experiment_01_zn_landscape.jpg)
VERITAS Observatory
- Gamma ray observatory in Arizona, USA
- Participation: DESY
- Website of the VERITAS Collaboration
![The Palomar Observatory (Credit: Palomar Observatory)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_palomar_img_5704_landscape.jpg)
Zwicky-Transient-Facility (ZTF)
- Sky survey at the Palomar Observatory, California, USA
- Participation: DESY
- ZTF-Website
![Telescope at the Fairborn Observatory (Credit: AIP)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_2_fairborn_landscape.jpg)
Fairborn Observatory
- Site with robotic telescopes in Arizona, USA
- Participation: AIP
![Large Binocular Telescope (Credit: LBTO)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_6-lbt_landscape.jpg)
Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)
- Telescope with the largest optical single mirrors at Mount Graham, Arizona, USA
- Participation: AIP
- LBT Observatory Website
![Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Credit: SDSS)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_11-sdss_landscape.jpg)
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
- Large-scale sky survey using telescopes at the Apache Point Observatory, New Mexico, USA and at the Las Campanas Observatory, Chile
- Participation: AIP
- Website about SDSS-Instrumentation
![Hobby-Ebberly Telescope (Credits: HET/AIP)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_14-hobbyebberly_virus_landscape.jpg)
Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET)
- Very powerful optical telescope at the McDonald Observatory, Texas, USA
- Participation with instrumentation: AIP
- Website of the McDonald Observatory
![VISTA (Credit: AIP)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_1_vista_landscape.jpg)
VISTA Telescope
- "Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy" – Survey telescope at the Paranal Observatory of ESO in the Atacama desert, Chile
- Participation with Instrumentation: AIP
- Website of ESO (European Southern Observatory)
![The MUSE Instrument at the Very Large Telescope (Credit: AIP)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_8-vlt_muse_landscape.jpg)
Very Large Telescope (VLT)
- Highly powerful optical observatory with four main telescopes and four auxiliary telescopes that can be combined interferometrically at the Paranal Observatory of ESO in the Atacama desert, Chile
- Participation with instrumentation: AIP
- Website of ESO (European Southern Observatory)
![Visualisation of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) (Credit: ESO)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_eelt_eso_landscape.jpg)
European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT)
- Planned European, extremely big optical telescope with a nearly 40-meter mirror in Cerro Armazones, Chile
- Participation with instrumentation: AIP
- Website of ESO (European Southern Observatory) about the E-ELT
![AIP's PMAS instrument at the Calar Alto Observatory (Credit: AIP)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_9-calaralto_pmas_landscape.jpg)
Observatorio de Calar Alto
- German-Spanish observatory in the Sierra de Los Filabres, north of Almeria, Spain
- Participation with instrumentation: AIP
- Website of the Calar Alto Observatory
![The International LOFAR Telescope (Credit: ASTRON)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_lofar_map_astron_landscape.jpg)
International LOFAR Telescope (ILT)
- Digital radio telescope with stations in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, France and Poland
- Participation: AIP
- Website of the LOFAR Project
![HiSCORE in Tunka-Valley](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_hiscore_landscape.jpg)
Hundred Square-km Cosmic ORigin Explorer (HiSCORE)
- Detector for very high-energy gamma rays in im Tunka-Valley, Sibiria, Russia
- Participation: DESY
- Project website for HiSCORE
GEO600 Gravitational-Wave Detector
- Gravitational-wave detector in Ruthe in the vicinity of Hannover, Germany
- Project of the AEI with British partners
- Website of GEO600
![Kagra Kagra](/sites/default/files/images/kagra2048-1518-max_landscape.jpg)
KAGRA Observatory
- Gravitational-wave detector in Hida, Japan
- Participation: AEI
- Website of KAGRA
![Credit: Virgo Collaboration Virgo](/sites/default/files/images/virgo1600-1200-max_landscape.png)
Virgo
- Italian-French gravitational-wave detector in Italy, near Pisa
- Participation: AEI
- Website of Virgo
![The Gregor Telescope at the Observatorio del Teide (Credit: AIP)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_5-teide_gregor_landscape.jpg)
Observatorio del Teide
- Observatory with several telescopes at 2400 meters height in Tenerife, Spain
- Participation: AIP
- Website of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
![Data taking with MAGIC (Copyright: Adiv González Muñoz/IFAE)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_magic_01_zn_landscape.jpg)
MAGIC Telescope
- Gamma ray observatory at La Palma, Spain
- Participation: DESY
- Website of the MAGIC Group
![Siding Spring Observatory (Credit: ANU)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_10-rave_landscape.jpg)
Siding Spring Observatory
- Observatory run by the Australian National University (ANU) 500km north-west of Sydney, Australia
- Participation: AIP
- Website of the Australian National University
![Cherenkov light, being observed with the Cherenkov Telescope Array (Copyright: DESY/Milde Science Comm./Exozet)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_cta_kosm_schauer04_zn_landscape.jpg)
Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA)
- Gamma ray observatory with two planned sites in Chile (Paranal) and Spain (La Palma)
- Participation: DESY, Science Data Management Centre is being built on the DESY-Campus in Zeuthen
- CTA Website
![H.E.S.S. II telescope array Namibia (Copyright: © Christian Föhr/ H.E.S.S. Collaboration, 2012)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_hess_ii_telescope_array_07_zn_landscape.jpg)
H.E.S.S. Observatory
- High-energy observatory in Namibia
- Participation: DESY
- Project website for H.E.S.S.
![The IceCube lab in the antarctic winter (Copyright: Freija Descamps/NSF, 2011)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_icecube_south_pol_02_zn_landscape.jpg)
IceCube Neutrino Observatory
- Neutrino detector in the ice of the South Pole, Antarctic
- Participation: DESY
- Website about IceCube by the University of Wisconsin
Facilities in Space
![The XMM-Newton space telescope (Visualisation/Credit: ESA)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_15-xmm-newton_esa_landscape.jpg)
XMM-Newton
- X-ray satellite mission of the European Space Agency (ESA)
- Participation: AIP
- ESA-Website about XMM-Newton
![The Fermi Large Area Telescope (Copyright: NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonnet)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_fermi_02_zn_landscape.jpg)
Fermi
- Space telescope of the NASA for Gamma ray astronomy
- Participation: DESY
- Website of the NASA about Fermi
![Gaia in the test facility (Credit: AIP/GAIA/ESA)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_4_gaia_landscape.jpg)
GAIA
- Space observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA) for scanning the Milky Way
- Participation: AIP
- ESA Website about GAIA
![Visualisation of the LISA Pathfinder (Credits: ESA–C.Carreau) Visualisation of the LISA Pathfinder (Credits: ESA–C.Carreau)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_lisa_pathfinder_in_space_landscape.jpg)
LISA Pathfinder (2015-2017)
- Pathfinder mission for LISA
- Participation: AEI
- Project website about LISA Pathfinder and LISA
![Visualisation of ROSITA (Credits: MPIA/eROSITA)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_3-erosita_landscape.jpg)
eROSITA
- Main instrument of the Russian "Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma" (SRG) Satellite
- Participation: AIP
- Website of the eROSITA-Mission
![STIX instrument for the Solar Orbiter (Credit: AIP)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_stix_onel_landscape.jpeg)
Solar Orbiter
- Planned space probe of the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate the Sun
- Participation: AIP
- ESA-Website for the Solar Orbiter Mission
![Two concepts for the PLATO mission (Credit: ESA)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_aip_plato_2_concepts_410_landscape.jpg)
PLATO
- Space observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA) to search for extrasolar planets (Launch: 2024)
- Participation: AIP
- ESA website about the PLATO mission
![Visualisation of LISA (Credit: Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, Milde Marketing/exozet)](/sites/default/files/images/lisa_spacecraft_aei_lg_landscape.jpg)
LISA
- Gravitational-wave detector in space (Launch: 2034)
- Participation: AEI
![Collage of the ULTRASAT satellite (photomontage: DESY, material from NASA and Weizmann Institute of Science) Collage of the ULTRASAT satellite (photomontage: DESY, material from NASA and Weizmann Institute of Science)](/sites/default/files/images/box_wk_desy_ultrasat_landscape.jpg)
ULTRASAT - Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite
- Mission lead by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel
- Participation: DESY
- Projekt website for ULTRASAT (engl.)