Atlas · Observatories · Where the Data Lives

Every working observatory, and where its data sits.

121 research observatories — ground, space, and beyond photons — each placed at the wavelengths it actually observes, from LHAASO at PeV energies (left edge) to LOFAR at 10 MHz (right edge), with a gravitational-wave / neutrino / cosmic-ray lane below. Click any bar for the facility's archive: which institution holds the data, how you query it, and how long it stays proprietary. Solid bars are operating; hatched bars are retired instruments whose archives remain primary data sources; dashed outlines are under construction.

static snapshot · curated 2026-06-11 · 121 observatories · statuses not live-refreshed
γ-ray100 keV – PeV
X-ray0.1–100 keV
UV10–350 nm
Optical350–1000 nm
NIR1–3 µm
Mid-IR3–30 µm
Far-IR30–500 µm
Submm0.5–30 mm
Radio3 cm – 100 m
10⁻²⁰ m
~ PeV
10⁻¹¹ m
100 keV
10⁻⁸ m
EUV
350 nm
Lyα
1 µm
Y-band
3 µm
L-band
30 µm
N-band
500 µm
SPIRE
100 m
~ 3 MHz
Platform
Status
Data access
121
operating retired · archive remains a primary data source under construction / pre-launch bottom lane: gravitational waves · neutrinos · cosmic rays

Click any bar to open the facility card — instruments, site, operator, and where the data lives: archive links, access routes, proprietary periods.

How to read this atlas

One bar per observatory. Horizontal position is honest: each bar spans the wavelengths the facility's current instrument suite actually covers, on the same banded log axis the RAVEN Catalogs atlas uses, here extended to 10⁻²⁰ m so the TeV–PeV facilities get real positions instead of piling on the edge. Facilities that cross bands (Swift, SVOM, AstroSat, Hinode) cross visually. The bottom lane steps off the spectrum entirely: gravitational-wave interferometers and pulsar-timing arrays, neutrino detectors, and ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray arrays, ordered by messenger.

The unit is the observatory — Keck, not KCWI; Palomar, not ZTF — because the archive boundary almost always sits at the facility level. The drawer's payload is the data-residence block: every archive that holds the facility's data, tagged by access route, plus the default proprietary period. The tags are deliberately blunt about an uncomfortable spread: VLT data land in a queryable public archive after twelve months, while Magellan and NOEMA photons mostly never leave PI laptops, and the IACT gamma-ray collaborations are only now — via CTAO — adopting open archives at all.

This is a static snapshot, curated 2026-06-11, deliberately not live-refreshed. Instrument rosters change every semester; archive URLs and the literature references age far more slowly, and those are what this page is for. Retired facilities appear (hatched) only where their archive remains a primary data source — Spitzer, WISE/NEOWISE, Herschel, Kepler, GALEX, Arecibo's surveys. For how thoroughly each archive has been mined, see the companion Archives atlas; for the historical space-platform inventory, the Platforms atlas.

Portalweb search interface with per-observation download VO / TAPprogrammatic ADQL or VO-protocol access VizieRcanonical catalog tables at CDS — entries without one carry a facility-name search of all published tables instead Bulk / DRversioned data releases or FTP trees Alertsreal-time event streams (brokers, GCN, VOEvent) PI-heldno general public archive

References

Facility description papers and archive documentation for every entry, grouped by band. Archive URLs were verified at curation time; instrument rosters reflect the 2026A semester.

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