About The Observatory

Our History

The observatory was started by Clive Purchase in 1998 to prepare for the Cornish eclipse. It was established at the Roseland Community School and he had an array of half a dozen large telescopes, including a four inch Coheilostat for the study of the Sun. He concentrated on teaching primary schools the basics of astronomy and then bringing the groups to the observatory for night viewing sessions. 

The observatory ran a very successful Festival of the Dark Sun during the eclipse week, which consisted of a variety of workshops and lectures by guest speakers. We also carried out an experiment to measure the infrared flux during the eclipse, due to the cloud some unusual results were obtained which still require further investigation. The technical support for this experiment came from the world famous Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Following the eclipse, Clive moved the bulk of the equipment to Callington and Brian Sheen relocated the observatory to its present site.