Blackford, Edinburgh

Blackford is an area in the south of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. It is located near Morningside, and The Grange. Blackford Hill dominates the view to the south. The majority of the Blackford is now housing, mostly dating from the Victorian or Edwardian eras. The local parish church of the Church of Scotland is the Reid Memorial Church, which was opened in 1935. It is home to the University of Edinburgh campus of King's Buildings.

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Reid Memorial Church

The Reid Memorial Church is a church in Edinburgh. It is a congregation of the Church of Scotland (in the Presbytery of Edinburgh) and is located in the Blackford area on the south side of the city.

Blackford Hill railway station

Blackford Hill railway station was a railway station in the Blackford area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was located at the foot of Blackford Hill on the Edinburgh Suburban and Southside Junction Railway (ESSJR). It was opened on 1 December 1884. Blackford Hill station closed in 1962, when passenger rail services were withdrawn from the Edinburgh Suburban line although the line itself was retained for rail freight use. The route continues to be used for freight services to this day, so freight trains avoid Edinburgh's main stations of Edinburgh Waverley and Haymarket, and occasionally diverted passenger trains also pass along this line.

Royal Observatory, Edinburgh

The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE) is an astronomical institution located on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh. The site is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The ROE comprises the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) of STFC, the Institute for Astronomy of the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, and the ROE Visitor Centre. The observatory carries out astronomical research and university teaching; design, project management, and construction of instruments and telescopes for astronomical observatories; and teacher training in astronomy and outreach to the public. The ROE Library includes the Crawford Collection of books and manuscripts gifted in 1888 by the 26th Earl of Crawford. Before it moved to the present site in 1896, the Royal Observatory was located on Calton Hill, close to the centre of Edinburgh, at what is now known as the City Observatory.

387 m

UK Astronomy Technology Centre

The UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) is based at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. The UK ATC designs, builds, develops, tests and manages major instrumentation projects in support of UK and international Astronomy. It has design offices, workshops and test facilities for both ground- and space-based instruments, including a suite of test labs capable of handling the largest current and projected instruments. The UK ATC was formed in 1998 in Edinburgh from the technology departments of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE), and the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Cambridge (RGO). Its initial "customers" were the then new Gemini Observatory, the former ROE observatories in Hawaii (the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT)), and a former RGO observatory, the Isaac Newton Group on La Palma, Canary Islands. More recently, collaboration with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have gained importance. Major projects and collaborations include: Several first-generation instruments for the Gemini Observatory. A mid-infrared spectrometer for the UKIRT and the Gemini Observatory. Data acquisition and reduction software for the UKIRT and the JCMT. The Wide Field Infrared Camera for the UKIRT. The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver of the Herschel Space Observatory. The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for UK universities and ESO. A high-sensitivity, wide-field, sub-millimetre camera for the JCMT (SCUBA2). The MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) for the JWST. Observing tool software for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array. Design studies for ESO's European Extremely Large Telescope. An infrared K-band multi-object spectrometer for ESO's Very Large Telescope. The European Union funded Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON). Following increased government emphasis on knowledge transfer and declining funds for the Science and Technology Facilities Council the UK ATC is increasingly working on projects with astronomical institutions beyond the UK and the EU, with institutions dedicated to science and technology other than astronomy, and with technology-related businesses.