The Skinakas Observatory is a joint research facility of the University of Crete and the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH). Its prime objective is to conduct fundamental research in Astronomy and to promote Astronomy among students and general public in Greece. It currently houses two fully functional telescopes: a 1.3m modified Ritchey–Chrétien telescope and a 0.3m Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.
Skinakas Observatory is operated by the Astrophysics Group of the University of Crete and FORTH.
Open Days
Skinakas Observatory offers a number of open days each year in order to make the general public familiar with recent advances in science and technology. This provides the opportunity to visitors to be introduced to the operation of the observatory, to be informed about the latest achievements in Astrophysics, as well as to observe through the telescope, if the weather conditions are good.
Οpen days for the year 2017:
Sunday, May 14
Sunday, June 11
Sunday, July 9
Sunday, August 6
Sunday, September 3
During the οpen days the Observatory facilities can be visited from 18:00 to 23:00. Up until 20:30 the visitors have the opportunity to be guided through the Observatory’s infrastructure and follow a related presentation. After that time the telescope points to select astronomical objects and the visitors can view them through an eyepiece.
Due to the low temperatures at the altitude of Skinakas, having warm clothes are highly recommended. There is very limited number of seating available on site and due the large number of people visiting, often it may take over an hour to wait on queue. Please note that there are no public restrooms on site, or guest areas providing food or drinks.
The road to Skinakas Observatory is very narrow, so extreme caution is needed and parking space on the site is very limited. For these reasons it is strongly advised that buses are not used to carry visitors to the Observatory during open days since, depending on their size, they are often not able to reach the peak.
A Google map with driving directions from the city of Heraklion to Skinakas Observatory is available here.