Pic du Midi Observatory, Astronomical observatory in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France.
Pic du Midi Observatory is an astronomical facility set high in the French Pyrenees at nearly 2900 meters elevation with modern research structures. The buildings and equipment support celestial observation and various scientific measurements at this mountain location.
Construction of the observatory began in 1878 under the Société Ramond, and it opened in 1881 as a meteorological station. Rising costs led the society to hand it over, and on 7 August 1882 it became a state institution. It joined the University of Toulouse in 1903, and in 1908 an 8-metre dome was completed for a 38-cm equatorial reflector.
The site connects science with public interest through museums and a planetarium, where visitors experience celestial observation firsthand. Schools and researchers gather here to explore the universe together.
The observatory stands at 2880 m on the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, 150 km from Toulouse and 30 km from the Spanish border. A cable car built in 1952, rebuilt between 1996 and 1999, links the summit with La Mongie, a ski resort about 20 km away. Construction crews could work only four months a year because of the weather, so visitors should expect snow and sudden cold even outside winter.
The 2-metre Bernard Lyot Telescope, the largest in France, was commissioned in 1980 and is used for stellar spectropolarimetry. In 1963 NASA funded a 106-cm telescope in the Gentilli Dome to photograph the Moon in detail for the Apollo programme. The observatory also built coronagraphs for studying the solar corona.
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