A window onto the universe from Mt Psiloritis
Observatory in Anogeia in central Crete has become a focal point of international synergies and of plans to develop astrotourism
We watch the car thermometer drop 10 degrees from 30 Celsius as we leave the village of Anogeia in central Crete as we make the climb to the Skinakas Observatory on the summit of Mount Psiloritis (Ida).
The higher up we go, the more bare the landscape becomes, with herds of goats and black rams with impressive twisted horns dotting the hillsides. We spot one of the three domes of the observatory, which is headed by Vassilis Charmandaris, a professor of physics at the University of Crete and director of the Institute of Astrophysics at the Institute of Technology and Research (ITE). He is waiting for us, wearing a jacket with the Skinakas logo and we understand why as soon as we step out of the car: The temperature here is 19 degrees Celsius but it feels like -1. We are 1,750 meters above sea level. We can see the northern coast of Crete and the Aegean Sea and, on the other side, the island’s southern coast and the Libyan Sea. The sun is setting and the horizon is painted in shades of crimson. The atmosphere is crystal clear. The first stars appear but my attention is on the birds circling above Skinakas. “Eagles?” I ask. “No, vultures,” replies Charmandaris.
The idea to create an observatory at Skinakas was conceived in the summer of 1984. The University of Crete, the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH, formerly the Research Center of Crete) and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) joined forces to build and operate a telescope for teaching astronomy to university students and contributing to the research of celestial objects like comets and nebula. Professors Ioannis Papamastorakis and Gerhard Haerendel, then director of MPE, were instrumental in getting the project off the ground.
“The vision of the founders and pioneers of the observatory was simple and at the same time ambitious: To create in Greece a modern observatory which not only trains the younger generation of students at the University of Crete in the modern techniques of exploring the universe, but is also a well-equipped research unit that attracts notable scientists, both Greek and foreign,” Charmandaris tells Kathimerini.
The project’s pioneers were in luck: Halley’s Comet was expected to make an appearance in the spring of 1986. The last time it had been seen from Earth was in 1910, an event that had caused some public panic. But 1986 was different and for the creators of the Skinakas Observatory, this was the ideal event to set as the launch date. “In record time, just 16 months after the donation by the Municipality of Anogeia, the road to the top was paved with asphalt – no easy feat – and the building for the first telescope was completed. The inauguration took place on April 12, 1986, with a crowd of people attending the opening and the first digital camera in Greece in a 30 cm telescope photographing Halley’s Comet as it crossed the sky,” says Charmandaris.
The construction of the guesthouse followed in 1988 and it immediately played host to the first school of Observational Astrophysics in Greece. Commissioned in the fall of 1995 and ideal for observing galaxies and star clusters, the larger and more modern telescope, 1.3 meters in diameter, came later. In 2006, in collaboration with the University of Tubingen, a third, 0.6-meter telescope was installed at Skinakas. This Cassegrain telescope is fully robotic and web-driven and can be operated online even by amateur astronomers.
“These three optical telescopes have trained dozens of undergraduate and postgraduate students from Greece and abroad. They have also contributed to the publication of approximately 300 papers, almost double the number of those contributed by all other observatories in the country combined,” explains Charmandaris.
The director of Skinakas says that this particular observatory contributed to the establishment, in 2018, of the Institute of Astrophysics at ITE, which, he adds, “gave it a new dynamic and flexibility.”
Two new optical telescopes, one with a mirror of 1 meter, sponsored by the Greece 2021 Committee, and one with a mirror of 1.2 meters, with funding from the European Recovery program, are expected to start imaging the night sky from the end of 2024 and 2025 respectively. In addition, in collaboration with researchers from the United States and with funding from the country’s National Science Foundation (NSF), the observatory will begin operating 16 small telescopes in 2025, which, together with a similar array in the US, can photograph any point in the sky within two seconds.
‘These three optical telescopes have trained dozens of undergraduate and postgraduate students from Greece and abroad’
“The purpose of what is a first, is to register the light from the initial moment of supernova explosions, but also to determine the location of sources that emit gravitational waves,” he says.
We briefly enter one of the observatories and see a gentleman seated in front of a series of screens displaying astronomical objects. It is Dr Efthymios (Makis) Palaiologou, a telescope support scientist who has retired, but continues to spend a lot of time in front of the “window to the stars.” Palaiologou is the co-author, with Ioannis Papamastorakis, of the photographic album “Skinakas Observatory: A View to the Universe” (2011). With him are two physics students who volunteer at Skinakas. “Don’t switch on the light,” Palaiologou instructs us. The dome has opened and the stars are clearly visible.
Americans say that “the sky is the limit.” Not so at Skinakas, where, thanks to funding of 3.3 million euros from the European Research Council and a donation of 1.4 million euros from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, a researcher from the Institute of Astrophysics and a professor from the University of Crete Department of Physics are looking for answers to unsolved questions: How exactly do black holes absorb the matter that falls into them and at the same time create jets of matter that move away at enormous speeds, and what is the three-dimensional form of our galaxy’s magnetic field?
The Municipality of Anogeia has also played an important role. “It secured funding from the Regional Authority of Crete to repair and resurface the road leading to the top of Skinakas, while it has also started on the construction of the Star School, a multi-purpose room in the observatory that will house a new 1.2-meter telescope. Its operation is expected to act as a catalyst for organizing joint educational and cultural activities as well as astrotourism programs,” he says.
It’s hard to imagine a better experience than sipping Cretan raki on the top of Psiloritis while observing Venus crossing in front of the solar disk (a rare phenomenon that has been photographed by the astronomers of Skinakas).
Data hub
The Skinakas Observatory has also been selected by the European Space Agency to act as a terminal for receiving data from space.
“The cost of launching a satellite has dropped. There are already 9,000 out there and they are expected to exceed 100,000 by the end of the decade,” says Charmandaris. “All these satellites send the data they collect from space to the ground, not with radio waves but with near-infrared lasers. They allow a much larger volume of data to be transmitted, but unlike radio waves, they require modern telescopes on the ground and good weather conditions because they cannot penetrate clouds. The sunshine in our country, and especially in Crete, is abundant, which gives us a comparative strategic advantage.”
The observatory is further certified to observe the position of low-orbiting satellites that cross the sky in a matter of minutes.
“Crete’s university ecosystem and the know-how of the researchers not only at the Institute of Astrophysics but also at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser of the ITE, allow synergies to develop and contribute to the development of new infrastructures and technologies. They may lead to new business opportunities with significant economic benefits, similar to that which started from Crete and the laboratories of ITE [FORTH in English} 35 years ago with the first Internet spin-off, FORTHnet,” Charmandaris says.
Kids counting stars
A short while later, we get back into our cars and Charmandaris to Topos tou Voskou (Shepherd’s Place) back in Anogeia, a space that has been revamped by the municipal authority and which hosts the annual meeting of the Crete Association of Friends of Astronomy. The Institute of Astrophysics also contributes to the event.
There, in the dark, a group of budding young astronomers is peering through the lenses of a row of telescopes. We rejoice as we witness with the naked eye a spectacular shooting star. Proper astronomers are at hand to help the youngsters. There is the moon, with all its mountains and craters. The kids are loving it. For a moment, I turn and look north. I wonder, what will the Skinakas Observatory look like in 2062, when Halley’s Comet makes its next appearance?
