Astronomy Doubs

Despite being based in Pontarlier, the astronomy club organizes its observation sessions some ten kilometers from the town, in the southern sector of Hauterive-la-Fresse. This location offers excellent sky quality, characterized by almost insignificant light pollution. Wednesday evenings begin with a tour of the observatory, complete with technical explanations of the sky and telescopes, before focusing on celestial observations.

The Association d'Astronomie de Franche-Comté is based in the grounds of the Besançon Observatory, west of the city center. It organizes free public evenings on the first Tuesday of each month, when the weather is fine. The main telescope building originally housed an "équatorial coudé", the observatory's largest telescope, built between 1884 and 1888, and used from 1890 until the late 1960s to observe certain types of stars and comets. Today, the building includes a dome with a 400mm telescope and a meeting room. As the sky over Besançon is not ideal for discovering faint celestial objects (stars, nebulae, galaxies), the objects observed during these public evenings are more likely to be luminous objects, particularly the Moon and planets. Of course, the Jean-Marc Becker Observatory also takes part in major national astronomy events such as the Fête de la science, the Jour de la nuit, and the Nuits des étoiles, for which its members offer daytime (sun) or night-time observation sessions, depending on the program.