Lulin Observatory
The Lulin Observatory, established in 2002 under the Ministry of Education’s Academic Excellence Program, became home to Taiwan’s first one-meter telescope, the Lulin One-meter Telescope (LOT). Testing began in the winter of the same year, during which NCU graduate students discovered asteroid 2002WT18, later designated 259110 and named “Lulin 1” as the first asteroid discovered at the observatory. LOT officially opened to researchers in 2003, supporting numerous domestic and international projects. To date, over 200 scientific papers utilizing LOT data have been published, including the first SCI paper by Professor Hwang Chorng-Yuan in 2004. The observatory has contributed to key discoveries such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), asteroids, near-Earth objects, and supernovae. In 2006, the Lulin Sky Survey (LUSS) began using a 40-cm telescope, leading to the discovery of Taiwan’s first comet, C/2007 N3 (Lulin), in 2007.


Located in the Tataka area of Yushan National Park at an altitude of 2,862 meters, the Lulin Observatory benefits from low atmospheric extinction, high transparency, and dark skies far from urban areas. With minimal impact from typhoons and seasonal monsoons, it achieves around 1,400 observation hours annually. Its unique geographical location in the Western Pacific fills a longitudinal gap between Hawaii and other observatories, offering advantages in observing time-variable celestial objects.
