The site of the observatory was selected by making a compromise between several parameters arranged in decreasing order of importance.
The objective of this project is to take advantage of the remote control to throw off problems of physical accessibility and to exploit "a good astronomical site". A summit of mountain was essential.
Our means do not enable us to consider a setting up outside of Metropolitan France.
Construction must be authorized (by the administration). What is not obvious with the present law.
The clouds must be rare.
The local geography must not be at the origin of atmospheric turbulences.
In general terms, the site must allow the observation of the sky under the best conditions (weak luminous pollution, open horizon, etc...).
The small white round indicates the site of the observatory.
Visibility
To find a cloudless mountain sky, we chose the South Alps. The first west summits of the range, in the Haute Provence Alps profit from the cloudless sky of the south of the Rhone valley.
ideal site
To avoid the atmospheric turbulences generated by the neighbouring mountains, we limited ourselves to lonely summits.
Support
The commune of Thorame-Basse was interested by this project, it helped us to obtain the necessary authorizations for the construction of the observatory at the summit of the "Cheval Blanc" mountain, 2323 meters high.
