juliensimon/observatory-database
Observatory Database Credit: NASA/GSFC/Suomi NPP Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face. Dataset description Comprehensive database of astronomical observatories worldwide, sourced from Wikidata. 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… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/observatory-database.
Observatory Database
<div align="center"> <img src="banner.jpg" alt="Blue Marble — high-definition image of Earth from space" width="400"> <p><em>Credit: NASA/GSFC/Suomi NPP</em></p> </div>
Part of a [dataset collection](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/space-essentials-69cbafd7ea046a10eff11405) on Hugging Face.
Dataset description
Comprehensive database of astronomical observatories worldwide, sourced from Wikidata.
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.
This dataset is suitable for tabular classification tasks.
Schema
Quick stats
- 616 observatories from 60 countries
- 361 with geographic coordinates
- 0 with aperture data
- 47 with elevation data
- Highest elevation: Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (13,570 m)
- Estimated ground-based: 516, space-based: 100
- Top countries: United States (113), United Kingdom (43), France (26), Italy (25), Netherlands (19)
- Top wavelength bands:
Usage
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/observatory-database", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()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"]])
# Elevation distribution
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df.dropna(subset=["elevation_m"]).hist("elevation_m", bins=40)
plt.xlabel("Elevation (m)")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("Observatory Elevation Distribution")
plt.show()Data source
https://www.wikidata.org/
Related datasets
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About the author
Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.
Citation
@dataset{observatory_database,
title = {Observatory Database},
author = {Simon, Julien},
year = {2026},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/observatory-database},
note = {Derived from Wikidata contributors, https://www.wikidata.org/},
publisher = {Hugging Face}
}