Germany observation tower
Homburg Watchtower
You can see 104 km from here, looking north-east.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 104 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 104 kmFarthest ridgelooking north-east
- 98%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 54Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 386 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 54 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are in April and in September.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Jansouth-west24 min before the sea-level sunset20%
- Febsouth-west18 min before the sea-level sunset23%
- Marwest8 min before the sea-level sunset28%
- Aprwest16 min before the sea-level sunset37%
- Maynorth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset31%
- Junnorth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset30%
- Julnorth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset32%
- Augwest12 min before the sea-level sunset32%
- Sepwest14 min before the sea-level sunset35%
- Octwest8 min before the sea-level sunset29%
- Novsouth-west22 min before the sea-level sunset22%
- Decsouth-west34 min before the sea-level sunset20%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Homburg Watchtower.
Observation tower near Thale in Harz
Homburg Watchtower is an observation tower in Germany, 386 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 104 km away, looking north-east.
54 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Eilumer Horn (323 m), 55 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 98% of the circle.
The skies are clearest in April and in September.

Get there and stay
- Going upCheck the opening hours before you go: towers and decks close in bad weather.
- Wohnmobilparkplatz Am Bodetalcampsite · 1.0 km · 21 within 10 km
- Ferienpark Rosstrappeplace to stay · 0.9 km · 221 within 10 km
- Thalenearest town · 1.3 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in ThaleBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Erfurt-Weimar Airport (ERF)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 85 km in a straight lineCar hire at LEJ airport (Schkeuditz)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 75other viewpoints within 5 kmHexentanzplatz, La Viershöhe, Weißer Hirsch and 72 more
- 50named peaks within 5 kmApenberg, Brombeerberg, Kahlenberg and 47 more
- 5cable car and funicular stations within 5 kmHarzbob, Bergstation Kabinenbahn Hexentanzplatz, Talstation Kabinenbahn Hexentanzplatz and 2 more
- 35marked trails within 3 kmHarzer-Hexen-Stieg, Harzklub-Weg 51E, Brunhildenstieg and 32 more
- 63shelters and huts within 5 kmSchutzhütte am Krugberg, Schirmbuche, Ramberg Hütte and 60 more
- 66car parks within 3 km
- 2visitor centres within 5 kmBodetal-Information Thale, Tourist-Information
- 29restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- 21campsites within 10 kmWohnmobilparkplatz Am Bodetal, KlosterCamping Thale, Womopark24 Thale Harz and 18 more
- 221places to stay within 10 kmFerienpark Rosstrappe, Harzer Ferienpension, Ferienhaus Popp and 218 more
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Homburg Watchtower, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q1625900) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Lakeyas, Birdyas, Cavernyas, Cascadyas, Riveryas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.



