Skinakas Observatory offers a number of open days each year in order to help the general public become familiar with the wonders of the night sky, as well as the recent advances in astrophysics and technology. This provides the opportunity to visitors to be introduced to the operation of the observatory, to be informed about the latest astronomy results, as well as to observe through the 1.3m telescope, if the weather conditions are good.
During the summer of 2025 visitors may join us for the open days of the Observatory on the following days which coincide with the 1st quarter of the moon:
Wednesday June 4, Friday July 4, Monday August 4, Thursday September 4
A special event will be also organized on Friday August 22, at the “Shepherd’s Land“, just outside the town of Anogeia.
The open days are also supported by the Astronomy Club of the Students of the University of Crete, with personnel and their portable telescope.
Since the open days depend of the weather conditions on the Skinakas peak, please visit the Facebook account of the Institute of Astrophysics for last minute updates before heading up to the mountain.
During these days the Observatory is open to visitors from 18:00-23:00. During this time, visitors are given the opportunity to do the following:
- Observe the Sun through a portable solar telescope until just before sunset
- Watch a presentation regarding the history and observations of the observatory on the ground floor of the 1 m telescope dome, usually until 20:30. Due to the limited time, space and number of stuff, the presentations are in Greek. Depending on the available time and the number of visitors, there may be short presentations in English as well.
- Take a guided tour (mainly in Greek) of the 1.3 m telescope dome and only after it has already got dark enough for the stars to be visible (around 21:00), observe a suitable object for that evening, such as the Moon, using a special camera
- Easily observe, via a portable telescope of the students’ astronomy club located on the plateau outside the domes, other notable objects that are suitable for observation on the respective evening
ATTENTION: Due to the low temperatures at the altitude of Skinakas, having warm clothes is highly recommended. There is very limited number of seating available on site and due the large number of people visiting, it may often take over an hour to wait on queue. Please note that there are no public restrooms on site, or guest areas providing food and/or drinks.
The road to Skinakas Observatory is very narrow, so extreme caution is needed and parking space on the site is limited. For these reasons it is strongly advised that buses are not used to carry visitors to the Observatory during open days since, depending on their size, they are often not able to reach the peak.
A Google map with driving directions from the city of Heraklion to Skinakas Observatory is available here.
A 16minute video, taken through a car which depicts the drive from the Dept. of Physics of the University of Crete, along with the quality of the road as it was in 2014, is available here, while a video of the peak from a drone can be seen here.
Moreove, an impressive 3D view of of the peak of Skinakas Observatory is available here, while many pictures of the observatory, the surrounding area and the beautuful night sky can be found in our photo gallery. More videos are also available at the dedicated Youtube channel of the Institute of Astrophysics-FORTH.