page_title: Purple Mountain Observatory
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Purple Mountain Observatory / Description
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. China, Nanking, Sternwarte China: 600 mm Zeiss-Spiegel-Teleskop der Sternwarte Nanking
context_page_description: The Purple Mountain Observatory, also known as Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on the Purple Mountain in the east of Nanjing.
context_section_description: The Purple Mountain Observatory was established in 1934 funded by the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China and administered by Academia Sinica. The longtime director of the observatory from 1950 to 1984 was Chinese astronomer Zhang Yuzhe (张钰哲, 1902–1986, also known as Y. C. Chang).
  By the late 1980s, increasing light pollution in Nanjing meant Purple Mountain was no longer viable as a working observatory. It has since shifted its focus to public education, with much of the actual scientific work being carried out in its five branch observatories located at Qinghai (in Delingha), Ganyu, Xuyi, Honghe (in Jiamusi), and Qingdao.
  The Minor Planet Center credits the observatory, simply referred to as Nanking, with the discovery of 149 minor planets between 1955 and 1983, while the observatory's PMO NEO Survey Program is credited with more than 600 discoveries between 2006 and 2013.
caption: The 60-cm Zeiss reflector at Nanking in 1930
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