Small Romanian city to host high-performance astronomical observatory

The small city of Odobesti, in Vrancea county, is to host the most advanced astronomical observatory in Romania. Setting up this high-performance observatory is part of a larger project that will be implemented with EU funds, local News.ro reported.

The project "Improving the quality of life of the population in Odobesti" will be implemented in 44 months, to be ready on November 30, 2021. The total value of the project is of over RON 23 million (some EUR 4.8 million), with most of the money, namely RON 19.7 million, coming from the European Regional Development Fund.

The city’s mayor, Daniel Nicolas, said several universities in Romania and Western Europe have already shown interest in a partnership with the Odobesti authorities, wanting to work on the future observatory’s state-of-the-art equipment.

“We want to get the most out of the equipment we have, it's cutting-edge, last generation, and will have a value of EUR 2 million,” Nicolas said.

“We have 4K, 8K equipment, we will have all the chances to discover new celestial bodies. That is why we want to sign these partnerships with universities. In Western Europe, due to pollution, specialists can not make their observations properly, and that’s why they are very interested in collaborating with us, because we do not have pollution and we can see the whole northern hemisphere,” the mayor also said.

The Odobesti authorities believe that the new observatory will help the city attract more tourists, including local and foreign specialists.

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