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Bucharest Astronomical Observatory

With an eye for the Moon's craters

Where is it, when to visit, how much does it cost?

Astronomical Observatory in Bucharest is on Lascar Catargiu Boulevard 21, sector 1, near Romana Square. You can reach it via the surrounding streets, for example on Amiral Vasile Urseanu street, by chance, in the evening with better chances. You can also get here by public transportation as follows: Orlando station of lines 300 and 381, Piata Romana station of lines 79, 81, 133 or the M2 subway. An alternative is the Piata Victoriei station, where also several public transportation means arrive.

The visiting program is as follows:

  • Wednesdays and Sundays between 10-17;
  • from Thursday to Saturday between 14 - 21.

The highlight of a visit to the Observatory should be the astronomical observations made from the building's terrace, when the sky is clear. There are day and evening observations.

Tickets are available on the 2nd floor and cost 10 lei for the whole ticket and 5 lei for half.

Short history of the Astronomical Observatory

  • 1908 - Victor Anestin co-opts Am. Urseanu in the Romanian Astronomical Society, whose president becomes admiral with the intention of opening a popular observatory
  • 1910 - the observatory is opened according to the press of the time; the first telescope was a Zeiss telescope, diameter 150 mm
  • 1933 - Mrs. Urseanu donates the building to the municipality after the death of her husband, for a while the building housed a picture gallery
  • 1950 - Zeiss bezel is reinstalled
  • 1960s - more observation instruments are added to the equipment

Astronomical Observatory has fulfilled its role of publicizing astronomy over the years.

1. Building

On a Saturday evening in February with partly clear skies I went with my daughter, Denisa (11), to visit the Observatory. Around the Observatory several accompanied children were heading towards the same destination, which we were to see in the building.

Before climbing the stairs to the second floor where there is the ticket office and the exhibition of images, we saw in the ground floor hallway, two of the most important figures of astronomy, one of them being Admiral Urseanu, and on the stairs a huge painting depicting the admiral and his wife as the founders of the city's picture gallery. On the second floor there are 3 rooms that can be visited as well as the hall between them.

Bucharest Astronomical Observatory

Stunning stained-glass windows

Founders of the Bucharest Art Gallery

Admiral Vasile Urseanu

2. Our galaxy

The room on the right shows our galaxy, one of the hundreds of thousands of galaxies in the Universe, the conditions for creating a galaxy and the evolutionary phases of celestial bodies.

about galaxies

about galaxies

3. Observation tools

The second room exhibits some old instruments for observing the sky.

Reflecting telescope

Astrograful

4. Solar system and asteroids

We moved to the last room, which is the most interesting, in my opinion. We were learning about asteroids with Romanian names and details about our solar system, the representation of the planets being three-dimensional thus highlighting their different sizes by comparison. Obviously for children it is very attractive to "see" this information, about which some of them have also learned something at school.

Asteroids with Romanian names

Solar System

Northern Hemisphere

Solar System

5. Terrace and telescope

Every 30 minutes a gentleman will take a group of us up to the terrace, near the dome, where there are installed and adjusted a few observing devices through which we will be able to watch the stars one by one. Until it was our turn, we admired the moon with the naked eye, which was doing its best not to be covered by a cloud. We also watched the illuminated boulevard from the rooftop where we were.

Looking through the MEADE telescope we can have mega-zooms of images of the Moon, highlighting 1 km details. That said, I personally was not convinced by this observation. Eventually we also focused our gaze through the telescope, but we were quite disappointed that we didn't understand and see much.

MEADE LX200R 305 mm diameter telescope

astronomy with the naked eye

from the observatory balcony

6. Luna

On the way down to the third floor, Denisa stopped to study the moon and its craters.

Studying the Moon

Conclusion

Astronomical Observatory in Bucharest is an interesting tourist attraction. A minus is the lack of a guide, flyers and informational materials. Compared to what you can learn at the Planetarium, at the Astronomical Observatory you don't learn the 10th part.

Steps:

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