OCM – Rolf Chini Cerro Murphy Observatory

February 2, 2026

HALO, Fairall 9? How are you?

The HALO project revealed that the accretion disk of the AGN Fairall 9 is significantly more expansive and physically complex than standard theoretical models predict. This was done by tracking time delays between light captured in different passbands, the method known as photometric continuum reverberation mapping.

Science

January 27, 2026

ERC Proof of Concept grant awarded to project „Toward Autonomous Observatories”

Congratulations to prof. Pietrzyński and the IT team from the Araucaria Project for winning the prestigious grant ERC Proof of Concept

Celebrations

July 19, 2025

The Observatory of Silence

“The Observatory of Silence” art installation, created by dr. hab. Katarzyna Tretyn from Bydgoszcz University of Technology, was presented during biennial art festival SACO in 2025, in Antofagasta, Chile. It was inspired by OCM.

Outreach

April 16, 2025

A podcast about OCM (Polish lang.)

In a podcast “Atlas Świata” Dr. Piotr Wielgórski answers Ana Matusevic’s questions about our observatory. Can you answer them, too?

Outreach

March 18, 2025

Observational Practice

A unique opportunity to polish your observing skills in the best location in the world!

Outreach

December 28, 2024

OCM in a video feature about Polish people in South America

Many thanks, Irmina Somers and the Dzień Dobry TVN team for a visit and a cool 8-minute video feature of OCM (video in Polish lang.)

Outreach

December 2, 2024

A machine learning method for predicting telescope cycle time

Artificial intelligence is predicting duration of observations at OCM, helping with scheduling and optimization.

Science

October 11, 2024

Surface brightness-color technique applied to nearby RR Lyrae stars

Near-infrared data from OCM combined with high-resolution spectroscopic data and Gaia parallaxes lead to the determination of projection factors and mean radii for nine Galactic RR Lyrae stars.

Science

October 3, 2024

We caught a comet!

Well, not literally, but in a photo 😉

Daily life

September 17, 2024

Projection factor and radii of nearby BL Her stars

Type II Cepheids might be an attractive alternative to classical Cepheids regarding the projection factor (p-factor), which is a crucial parameter in the Baade-Wesselink technique to determine the distance.

Science