OHP2025 Internship for the Lyon-Montpellier Master's in Astrophysics

The visit by students in the M2 Astrophysics (Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University and University of Montpellier) and CCP (Cosmos, Fields, and Particles, Montpellier) programs to the Haute-Provence Observatory took place this year from September 22 to 26.

*The 2025–2026 cohort of the “Astrophysics” and “Cosmos, Fields, and Particles” Master’s programs and their advisors at T193 at the OHP*
*– Credit: J. Balcaen*

This year, 21 students were able to use three OHP telescopes as well as the IRiS telescope from LabEx OCEVU to carry out seven projects (study of an exoplanet using the transit method, characterization of the orbits of binary stars, study of a spiral galaxy, etc.). During their stay, the students also had the opportunity to visit the 193-cm telescope and the ELODIE spectrograph, with which Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered the first exoplanet orbitinga main-sequence star 30 years ago, in 1995.

*OHP T120 control room – Credit: B. Le Goff*

This trip is a significant milestone for our students in the “Astrophysics” and “Cosmos, Fields and Particles” tracks of our Master’s in Physics programs, who have the opportunity to meet the cohort spread across two sites and to collect professional-quality data themselves, which will allow them to conduct a group research project throughout the semester.

*The Messier 82 galaxy captured with the IRiS telescope – Credit: Romain Loustalet Palengat*

Periods of favorable weather were used to collect several thousand images and hundreds of spectra to complete their projects and then produce some astrophotography images.

*The Iris Nebula captured with the OHP’s T120*
*– Credit: A. Blazère & R. Loustalet Palengat*

This trip was organized with the support of the Physics Departments of the Science Faculties at the University of Montpellier and Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University, as well as the Graduate School of the University of Montpellier, CRAL, LUPM, and Labex LIO.