Skip to content
viewyas
EN

Japan Japan observation deck

Hosooka Observatory

You can see 151 km from here, looking south-west.

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 151 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.

79out of 100

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).

  • 151 kmFarthest ridgelooking south-west
  • 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
  • 5%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
  • 128Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
  • 50 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint

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 from October to December.

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.

  1. Jansouth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset34%
  2. Febwest6 min before the sea-level sunset33%
  3. Marwest6 min before the sea-level sunset29%
  4. Aprwest6 min before the sea-level sunset28%
  5. Maynorth-west10 min before the sea-level sunset26%
  6. Junnorth-west10 min before the sea-level sunset24%
  7. Julnorth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset21%
  8. Augwest8 min before the sea-level sunset21%
  9. Sepwest6 min before the sea-level sunset27%
  10. Octwest6 min before the sea-level sunset38%
  11. Novsouth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset38%
  12. Decsouth-west4 min before the sea-level sunset37%
  • 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

Hosooka Observatory.

Hosooka Observatory is an observation deck in Japan, 50 m above the sea.

On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 151 km away, looking south-west.

The sea fills 5% of the horizon.

128 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Mount Shari (1,547 m), 77 km away.

The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.

The skies are clearest from October to December.

Kushirositsugen Hosooka Tenboudai
User:欅 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Get there and stay

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.

Hosooka Observatory seen from above (Sentinel-2)
Seen from above: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6 × 6 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Around, in OpenStreetMap

  • 3other viewpoints within 5 km細岡展望台 Kushiro Marsh Hosooka Observatory, 旧;夢が丘展望台, 展望広場
  • 1named peaks within 5 km岩保木山
  • 5car parks within 3 km
  • 3campsites within 10 km達古武オートキャンプ場, 塘路元村キャンプ場, 鶴の里キャンプフィールド
  • 8places to stay within 10 kmKushiro shitsugen Touro Youth Hostel, ホテル愛, ビジネスホテル桶谷 and 5 more
  • cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
  • marked trails within 3 km
  • shelters and huts within 5 km
  • visitor centres within 5 km
  • restaurants and cafés within 3 km

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 Hosooka Observatory, and what is near.

Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.

Peakyas3 mountains within 25 km
Mount Iwabokki119 m · 2.2 kmMount Oboro · 19 kmMount Sankaku78 m · 24 km
Lakeyas4 lakes within 15 km
Lake Takkobu1.3 km² · 2.9 kmLake Shirarutoro1.8 km² · 11 kmLake Tōro6.2 km² · 11 kmLake Harutori0.3 km² · 14 km
Forestyas1 forests and trees within 15 km
Kushiro Fisherman's Wharf MOO · 14 km
Riveryasthe river nearby
Kushiro River154 km · 29 m³/s

Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.

Photographs

The view, as people saw it.

Hosooka Visitors Lounge
Tzu-hsun, Hsu · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hosooka Station 01
Tzu-hsun, Hsu · CC BY-SA 4.0
細岡駅 - panoramio (1)
くろふね · CC BY 3.0

Other viewpoints nearby.

Hosooka Observatory

Japan

  • 79Viewyas Score
  • 151 kmFarthest ridge
  • 128Peaks in view
  • 50 mAltitude

Kaiyodai

Japan · 67 km

  • 78Viewyas Score
  • 138 kmFarthest ridge
  • 43Peaks in view
  • 255 mAltitude

See the guide

Rausu Kunashiri Observation Tower

Japan · 118 km

  • 67Viewyas Score
  • 94 kmFarthest ridge
  • 25Peaks in view
  • 154 mAltitude

See the guide

Taisetsu Observatory

Japan · 160 km

  • 51Viewyas Score
  • 26 kmFarthest ridge
  • 20Peaks in view
  • 401 mAltitude

See the guide

Where these figures come from

Name and typeWikidata (Q11605826) · CC0
SunJ. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms
Peaks in viewPeakyas (Wikidata, CC0)
Panorama and altitudeCopernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
CloudsNASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2)
What is around© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons
Sister atlasesPeakyas, Islandyas, Lakeyas, Forestyas, Birdyas, 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.