juliensimon/observatory-database

Observatory Database

Part of the Astronomy Datasets collection on Hugging Face.

Comprehensive database of astronomical observatories — 609 facilities from 60 countries, sourced from Wikidata.

Dataset description

From ancient naked-eye platforms to modern space-based flagship missions, observatories have been humanity's primary windows into the universe. This dataset covers optical telescopes, radio dishes, neutrino detectors, gamma-ray satellites, and space observatories — any facility classified in Wikidata as an astronomical observatory (Q62832), space observatory (Q1377879), or radio observatory (Q148578).

Each entry includes geographic coordinates (latitude/longitude), elevation above sea level, primary aperture size, operating organization, opening date, and the electromagnetic wavelength bands observed. This enables spatial analysis of observatory distribution, historical studies of observational astronomy, and comparison of ground-based vs. space-based capabilities.

Sourced from Wikidata's structured knowledge base, curated by the WikiProject Astronomy community with contributions from professional astronomers and enthusiasts worldwide.

Schema

Column	Type	Description
wikidata_id	string	Wikidata entity ID (e.g. Q179224)
name	string	Observatory name
country	string	Country where the observatory is located
latitude	float	Geographic latitude (decimal degrees)
longitude	float	Geographic longitude (decimal degrees)
elevation_m	float	Elevation above sea level (metres)
aperture_m	float	Primary mirror/dish aperture (metres)
operator	string	Operating organization or agency
opening_date	string	Date the observatory opened (YYYY-MM-DD)
wavelengths	string	Observed wavelength bands, semicolon-separated

Quick stats

• 609 observatories from 60 countries
• 357 with geographic coordinates
• 0 with aperture data
• 46 with elevation data
• Highest elevation: Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (13,570 m)
• Estimated ground-based: 510, space-based: 99
• Top countries: United States (109), United Kingdom (43), Italy (25), France (24), Netherlands (19)
• Top wavelength bands:

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/observatory-database", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Observatories by country
print(df["country"].value_counts().head(10))

# High-altitude observatories (above 3000 m)
high_alt = df[df["elevation_m"] > 3000].sort_values("elevation_m", ascending=False)
print(high_alt[["name", "country", "elevation_m"]].head(10))

# Large aperture telescopes (> 8 m)
large = df[df["aperture_m"] > 8].sort_values("aperture_m", ascending=False)
print(large[["name", "country", "aperture_m"]])

# Radio observatories
radio = df[df["wavelengths"].str.contains("radio", case=False, na=False)]
print(f"{len(radio):,} radio observatories")

# Space observatories
space_obs = df[df["wavelengths"].str.contains("X-ray|gamma|ultraviolet", case=False, na=False)]
print(space_obs[["name", "wavelengths"]].head(10))

Data source

Wikidata SPARQL endpoint. Observatories identified via property P31 (instance of) = Q62832 (astronomical observatory), Q1377879 (space observatory), or Q148578 (radio observatory). Data is community-curated by WikiProject Astronomy.

Update schedule

Quarterly (January, April, July, October). Re-run manually to pick up newly catalogued facilities.

Related datasets

• astronomer-database — Astronomers from Wikidata
• chandra-sources — Chandra X-ray source catalog

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Support

If you find this dataset useful, please give it a ❤️ on the dataset page and share feedback in the Community tab! Also consider giving a ⭐️ to the space-datasets repo.

Citation

@dataset{observatory_database,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {Observatory Database},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/observatory-database},
  note = {Sourced from Wikidata (CC0)}
}

License

CC0-1.0 (Wikidata content is public domain)