Rozhen, Smolyan Live Cam

This camera stands among the instruments of the Rozhen National Astronomical Observatory in the central Rhodopes. Weather masts fill the foreground.

Rozhen sits at roughly 1,750 metres on a ridge above the Chepelare valley and holds the largest telescope in south-eastern Europe, a two-metre reflector installed in the 1980s. The site was chosen for its dark skies and the number of clear nights it gets, and the anemometers and rain gauges crossing the frame are part of the monitoring that decides whether the domes open at all. One of them is visible below the treeline.

Cloud moving through the picture is therefore the point rather than an obstruction: watch it clear and the observatory's night is on.