Amargosa observatory

The Amargosa observatory was a Federation space station that was in service in the late 24th century. The observatory was located in orbit of the star Amargosa and was used for scientific research regarding the star. Its coordinates were 917358-358268-102879.
In 2371, the station had a complement of nineteen personnel, including an El-Aurian named Dr. Tolian Soran who planned to destroy several stars including Amargosa itself. With the help of the Klingon outlaw Duras sisters, he had secured trilithium stolen from the Romulans, planning to build a trilithium weapon which was capable of stopping all nuclear reactions in a star, thereby causing its collapse. With this, he armed solar probes which were hidden in a secret stash behind a magnetically sealed door protected by a dampening field. 
Soon however the Romulans traced their stolen trilithium and raided the station. 
The answered a distress call from the observatory. Soran and four other scientists survived the attack and were rescued by an away team from the Enterprise. Soran escaped the custody of the Enterprise and secretly returned to the empty station in order to continue his work with the weapons. Meanwhile, having discovered that the Romulans were looking for trilithium, Geordi La Forge and Lieutenant Commander Data arrived on the station to investigate and discovered the hidden solar probe, and Soran, preparing to use the weapon on the Amargosa star. Commander William T. Riker and Lt. Commander Worf came to their rescue, but they were unable to stop Soran from capturing La Forge in the process.
After Soran launched his weapon, the star collapsed and the resulting level 12 shock wave destroyed the observatory, along with everything else in the Amargosa system. ()
== Appendices ==
=== Background information ===
This station's quadrant of origin is inferred based on the position of the Amargosa system as seen in the star chart appearing in the episode .
The interior of the station featured jewel button control panels, intercoms, and graphic displays identical to those seen on the original . From an in-universe perspective, this suggested either that the station was more than one hundred years old at the time of its destruction, or its computer systems were that old. The control center of the station was a re-use of the long standing refit- bridge set. ()
The model of the observatory was reused for the wormhole relay station in .
=== Apocrypha ===
In the video game adaptation of the movie, it was possible to avert Soran's plans and save the star and the station.
=== External link ===
* 
de:Amargosa-Observatorium
nl:Amargosa observatorium
Category:Space stations