Observatorio Andaluz de Astronomía

In the hamlet of La Pedriza, 8km from Alcalá la Real with an amazing dark sky, the Einstein Astronomy Society, in collaboration with the Alcala la Real Town Hall, has top class facilities for the observation and teaching of astronomy, the Andalusian Astronomy Observatory.

La Sierra Sur de Jaén, which was recently awarded the Starlight Reserve certificate, maintains the natural light conditions and clarity of the night sky. It's an area where a commitment has been made to defend the quality of the night sky, access to the light of the stars and the different associated values.

The main buildings, which is about 70m2, houses the multi-use room and the library, observatory control room, a small kitchen, toilet and archive.

To the north of the main building, and entirely independent, is the observatory. The ground floor is used as a storeroom for the different instruments and telescope accessories and it has a small workshop for doing repairs.

The 4m diameter Scope Dome installed at the top houses a Meade S/C LX200-ACF GPS telescope with a 0.30 m opening to f/10 in an equatorial fork mount supported by an independent rigid column.

All the equipment at the Andalusian Astronomy Observatory: Dome, telescope and its battery of accessories and instruments can be remotely operated from anywhere.

On the terrace of the control room is a meteorological station, specially designed to be used in an astronomical observatory and an automatic AllSky camera for detecting meteors.