Calar Alto Observatory

The Calar Alto Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in Almería province in Spain on Calar Alto, a 2168m mountain in Sierra de Los Filabres.Calar Alto is owned and operated jointly by the German Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, and the Spanish Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada, and specializes on the observation of objects in the Solar System.The 3.5-meter telescope is the largest telescope in mainland Europe, though there are three larger telescopes on the Spanish island of La Palma at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. The minor planet 189202 Calar Alto, discovered by Felix Hormuth at Starkenburg Observatory in 2003, was named in honor of the observatory site.HistoryThe site was proposed in 1970, and was officially opened in July 1975 with the commissioning of its 1.2m telescope. The site developed due German and Spanish cooperation in astronomy. Eventually four more telescopes were commissioned. The Schmidt telescope was moved to Calar Alto in 1976 from the Hamburg Observatory at Bergedorf, where it had been completed in 1954. It was decommissioned in 2000. The observatory hosted the finish of Stage 11 of the 2017 Vuelta a España cycling race (the stage was won by Miguel Ángel López), having previously hosted stage finishes in 2004 (won by eventual race champion Roberto Heras) and 2006 (won by Igor Antón).