Purple Mountain Observatory (Chinese: 紫金山天文台; pinyin: Zĭjīnshān Tiānwéntái), also known as Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory, is an astronomical observatory located on the Purple Mountain in Nanjing, China.
The longtime director of the observatory (from 1950 to 1984) was Zhang Yuzhe (张钰哲) (Y. C. Chang).
The observatory discovered the periodic comets 60P/Tsuchinshan and 62P/Tsuchinshan, and also the non-periodic C/1977 V1 (Tsuchinshan), also known as Comet 1977 X.
Many asteroids were also discovered at the observatory, including the Trojan asteroids 2223 Sarpedon, 2260 Neoptolemus, 2363 Cebriones, 2456 Palamedes, as well as the eponymous 3494 Purple Mountain.
Read more about Purple Mountain Observatory: Image Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words purple mountain, purple, mountain and/or observatory:
“O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!”
—Katharine Lee Bates (1859–1929)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The mountain pushed us off her knees.
And now her lap is full of trees.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)