Frequently Asked Questions
BBSO is operated by the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the science and engineering university of the State of New Jersey. The funding for the observatory is through grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, the Korean National Science Foundation and other government and private sources.
During summer months BBSO is offering tours in a limited capacity. More info can be found here.
The solar telescopes are specially made for observing the Sun. On rare occasions we do use them at night on stars to check alignment and tracking. The earthshine telescope does run at night, of course, and not in the daytime. The observing schedule for the earthshine telescope depends on the phase of the Moon.
No. There are many other solar telescopes. A list of some of the largest ones can be found here. Big Bear's Goode Solar Telescope (GST, 1.6 m clear aperture) is one of the largest aperture solar telescope in the world along with US DKIST and German GREGOR telescopes. We host NSO GONG telescope that is part of a network of six identical telescopes spaced around the Earth as well as NSO SOLIS Telescopes (east of the causeway), but there are many other kinds of solar telescopes.
We have four buildings with telescopes. The big building at the end of the causeway contains the GST, our 1.6 m solar telescope. The small dome next to it contains two telecopes on one mount, our hydrogen-alpha solar flare patrol telescope and our earthshine telescope. We host two facilities that are run by the National Solar Observatories (NSO) with the headquarters in Boulder, CO. The rectangular building (container) on the shoreline contains NSO GONG telescope. And the recently built NSO SOLIS facility is located east of the causeway.
GONG stands for Global Oscillation Network Group. The GONG is part of the National Solar Observatory based in Boulder, CO. GONG operates six identical telescopes around the world to study the internal oscillations of the Sun.
SOLIS stands for Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun. It is a synoptic facility for solar observations over a long time frame that is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and designed and built by the National Solar Observatory (NSO). SOLIS provides unique observations of the Sun on a continuing basis for several decades to understand the solar activity cycle, sudden energy releases in the solar atmosphere, and solar irradiance changes and their relationship to global change. SOLIS was located on top of the Vacuum Telescope building (left) at Kitt Peak National Observatory until 2014, then temporarily moved to the University of Arizona Agricultural Farm in Tucson until 2018, and is now being permanently relocated to Big Bear Solar Observatory in California.
We do have a house for the family of one of our staff members on site, as well as a residence for our observatory director and some dormitory rooms for visiting astronomers. The rest of the observatory staff lives in the surrounding community.