The owner of the collapsed observatory in Liboňov wants to restore it to a functional state

Telnice (Ústecko) – The owner wants to repair and reopen the former observatory in Liboňov, a part of the municipality of Telnice in the Ústí region. The building operated until 1945, after which it began to deteriorate. Now, in the forest, there are a few ruins remaining from the observatory, beneath which there should be a basement and possibly even original equipment. Not far from the former observatory, the original cellar that was part of the complex has been preserved, and the public can already visit it and learn something about the history of the observatory. This was stated by its owner Vít Musílek to ČTK.

"Our only goal with the Liboňov observatory is to renovate it back to its original state from 1929, which is very ambitious, but given that it was quite an important place and I am still finding a lot of archival materials about it, I hope we can succeed," Musílek said. He estimates the reconstruction will cost millions of crowns, and purchasing the equipment will be more expensive.

According to Musílek, the observatory was very advanced for its time, and the equipment that was transported there had to be hidden in a pile of hay on carts so that no one would see it and copy it. "It didn’t have a classic round roof, but instead had a roof in the shape of a half-cylinder, which could be retracted, and from that place, the path of the stars across the meridian was measured," Musílek added. Locals believe that there should be a cellar under the heap of rubble, so it could be connected to its foundations after the rubble is cleared.

In the cellar, there was a device used by ships under the Austrian flag between 1882 and 1884 in the Greenland Sea. "Given that this place was very advanced, the observatory then asked the Austrians to borrow the device, which traveled straight from the Greenland Sea here," the owner stated. Now, interested parties have the opportunity to browse through historical documents or photographs of the observatory that are located in the cellar.

In the future, Musílek plans to place a transparent one-room so-called bubble hotel on the grounds near the observatory, which will provide guests with a view of the surroundings.