Kölner Observatorium für SubMillimeter Astronomie, Radio telescope at Gornergrat Kulm Hotel, Switzerland
The Kölner Observatorium für SubMillimeter Astronomie was a radio telescope installed in 1985 in the southern tower of the Kulm Hotel on the Gornergrat, at 3,135 m. Its 3 m primary dish and 0.27 m secondary mirror fed heterodyne receivers covering 210 to 820 GHz, detecting spectral lines from the interstellar medium.
The telescope began operations in 1985 as a collaborative project between German universities to study the interstellar space. After 25 years of observational work, it was shut down in 2010.
The telescope was run jointly by the University of Cologne's I. Physikalisches Institut and the Radioastronomisches Institut of the University of Bonn, both German institutions. It shared the Kulm Hotel's two towers with a 1.5 m infrared telescope, TIRGO, operated until 2005 by an Italian association of universities.
The dish sat in the southern tower of the Kulmhotel on the Gornergrat ridge, reached by the Gornergrat railway from Zermatt. Its 3,135 m altitude put it above much of the lower cloud and water vapour, which is why observatories occupied both hotel towers from 1967. Work there depended on clear, dry nights.
After closing in Switzerland, the telescope was dismantled and transported to even higher altitude in Tibet, where it continued operating under a new name. This second location at 4,300 meters allowed even better observations of cosmic radio waves.
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