Astronomy in Saudi Arabia

Extract

In the last twenty-five years, more than 100 astronomers have graduated from two astronomical departments in the Kingdom: one at King Saud University (KSU) in Riyadh and the other in King Abdulaziz university (KAU) in Jeddah. About 15% to 20% of those graduated are now working in fields related to astronomy, among them five with Ph.D. degrees and three with M.Sc. degrees. Most of the other astronomy graduates are teaching mathematics, physics or general science in schools.

The total number of academic staff in the two universities is ten Ph.Ds (five Saudis and five from abroad) and five research assistants, with no post-graduate students. Each department has a Celestron 14-inch (approx. 0.35m) with photo-counters, a 15-cm coudé refractor, solar laboratory, small planetarium and astronomical measuring instruments. In addition, KAU has a CCD camera, while KSU has a double telescope with 45cm Ritchey-Chrétien optics and a 24cm Schmidt telescope. All these observational facilities are located near the universities, where light pollution is very high and limits the observations. There is a plan to move the KSU double telescope away from Riyadh. Because of a lack of students and Saudi teaching staff, and cuts in the budget for universities, it is planned to turn the two astronomy departments into groups in the respective physics departments.