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Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

International Astronomical organisation

The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) is an official international clearing house for information relating to transient astronomical events. The CBAT collects and distributes information on comets, natural satellites, novae, meteors, and other transient astronomical events. The CBAT has historically established priority of discovery (who gets credit for it) and announced initial designations and names of new objects.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1882Founded1

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The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) is an official international clearing house for information relating to transient astronomical events.2

The story

The Central Bureau was founded by Astronomische Gesellschaft in 1882 at Kiel, Germany. During World War I it was moved to the Østervold Observatory at Copenhagen, Denmark, to be operated there by the Copenhagen University Observatory.

In 1922, the IAU made the Central Bureau its official Bureau Central des Télégrammes Astronomiques (French for Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams), and it remained in Copenhagen until 1965, when it moved to the Harvard College Observatory, to be operated there by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory on the Harvard University campus. In 2010, the CBAT moved from SAO to the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.

It has remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts to this day. The HCO had maintained a western-hemisphere Central Bureau from 1883 until the IAU's CBAT moved there at the end of 1964, so logically the HCO staff took over the IAU's Bureau.

From Wikipedia’s article on Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 1882Founded Founded1

Sources

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