Former Temporary Latitude Observatory

Former Temporary Latitude Observatory

The Former Temporary Latitude Observatory (旧臨時緯度観測所) in Mizusawa Hoshigaokacho, Oshu City, Iwate Prefecture, was opened as one of the six stations of the International Latitude Service worldwide; its zenith telescope room of 1899 and its main building and telescope target pier of 1900 became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 27, 2017 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Three Structures

The main building, the observatory's first, is a single-storey timber building with a hipped roof and four offices along an L-shaped corridor. The zenith telescope room is a small steel building whose roof slides on rails to open for observing, with a stone telescope pier at its centre (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

About 100 metres north, the target pier for calibrating the telescope is a brick pier under a separate timber shelter, a rare survival in Japan (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Each structure is described on its own page.

Visiting

All three are owned by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (Agency for Cultural Affairs). No official visiting information was found.