Vietnam's first observatory will welcome visitors starting in September.

The technical handover ceremony for the Nha Trang Observatory took place this afternoon (August 18th). Vietnam's first observatory is expected to begin welcoming visitors in September.

The Nha Trang Observatory is located at Hon Chong (Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa), a tourist destination in the coastal city of Nha Trang and also a convenient location for astronomical observation.

Placing Vietnam's first observatory in a tourist city like Nha Trang aims to disseminate knowledge about space science to the community.

The city of Nha Trang has also decided to include the Nha Trang Observatory in the Nha Trang tour itinerary for tourists visiting the city for relaxation and tourism.

With a construction cost of up to 60 billion VND, the Nha Trang observatory includes an optical telescope with a diameter of 0.5m, a 60-seat planetarium, and a 200m2 space exhibition room.

According to Associate Professor Pham Anh Tuan, the Nha Trang observatory project was started in 2014 and is one of two observatories built within the framework of the Vietnam Space Center project, with a total investment of 600 million USD (13,000 billion VND).

Besides the Nha Trang observatory, a second observatory is being built in the Hoa Lac High-Tech Park (Hanoi) and is expected to be operational from 2018. This second observatory will include a 0.5m diameter telescope and a planetarium with a dome-shaped roof and a diameter of up to 12 meters.

The telescope located at the Nha Trang Observatory is the most advanced telescope currently available. Photo: Le Van.

According to Mr. Tuan, the telescope at the Nha Trang Observatory is a reflecting optical telescope designed and manufactured by Marcon Company of Italy. The telescope's drive system is synchronized with the automatically controlled dome. In addition, the telescope is equipped with a camera and a spectral analyzer with high image and spectral resolution…

The planetarium at the Nha Trang Observatory is designed like a movie theater but with a dome-shaped screen. Images and films are projected onto the dome by a system of six high-resolution projectors, creating a realistic 3D effect of the sky and stars.

"The Nha Trang Observatory is tasked with conducting basic research in optical astrophysics and disseminating knowledge about space science to the community, supporting training, teaching, and improving the quality of human resources in the field of astrophysics and space science, and collaborating on research with research groups in the same field both domestically and internationally," said Mr. Pham Anh Tuan.

According to VNN