Berlin Observatory

The Berlin Observatory (Berliner Sternwarte) is a German astronomical institution with a series of observatories and related organizations in and around the city of Berlin in Germany, starting from the 18th century. It has its origins in 1700 when Gottfried Leibniz initiated the "Brandenburg Society of Science″ (Sozietät der Wissenschaften) which would later (1744) become the Prussian Academy of Sciences (Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften). The Society had no observatory but nevertheless an astronomer, Gottfried Kirch, who observed from a private observatory in Berlin. A first small observatory was furnished in 1711, financing itself by calendrical computations.

In 1825 Johann Franz Encke was appointed director by King Frederick William III of Prussia. With the support of Alexander von Humboldt, Encke got the King to agree to the financing of a true observatory, but one condition was that the observatory be made accessible to the public two nights per week. The building was designed by the well-known architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and began operating in 1835. It now bears the IAU observatory code 548.

Although the original observatory was built in the outskirts of the city, over the course of time the city expanded such that after two centuries the observatory was in the middle of other settlements which made making observations very difficult and a proposal to move the observatory was made. The observatory was moved to Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1913 (IAU observatory code 536). Since 1992 it is managed by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), although it has not been used for German astronomical observations since the 20th century.

In Berlin remain the Wilhelm Foerster Observatory (IAU code 544), the Archenhold Sternwarte, Berlin-Treptow (Archenhold Observatory; IAU code 604), the Urania Sternwarte (Urania Observatory, IAU code 537), and the Bruno H. Bürgel Observatory.

History

In September 1699, the Reichstag decided to introduce an "improved calendar" to the Protestant German states without having to take on the Gregorian Calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The 'improved calendar' was introduced the following year and resulted in 18 February 1700 being followed by 1 March. A patent for the calendar was granted to the planned Berlin Observatory by Prince-elector Frederick III on 10 May 1700 and eight days later Gottfried Kirch was appointed to Director of the Observatory. On 11 July (his 43rd birthday) the Kurfürst signed a document formally founding an Academy and an Observatory in Berlin. Therefore, Berlin received an academy just like those already existing in London, Paris and Rome – the Prussian Academy of Sciences (originally German name: ″Kurfürstlich-Brandenburgische Societät der Wissenschaften″), based on the plans of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz became the first president of the Academy. The fees resulting from the calendar patent were the almost single financial basis of the institution for a long period. The society originally had no actual observatory of its own and Kirch carried out his observations at various private observatories including, from 1705, the private observatory of Geheimrat Bernhard Friedrich von Krosigk on the Wallstrasse, in Cölln. Kirch was assisted by his wife Maria Margarethe and his son Christfried. Maria Margarethe discovered, among other things, the comet of 1702. In the meantime the Kurfürst had been raised in 1701 to the rank of King in Prussia. On 1 January 1710, the capital was expanded by uniting the previously independent towns of Dorotheenstadt, Friedrichstadt, Friedrichwerder, and Cölln and Berlin (the oldest ones).

The Old Berlin Observatory

The first Berlin Observatory was sited in the Dorotheenstadt quarter. The Marstall Unter den Linden had been erected from 1687 to 1688 according to the plans of the architect Johann Arnold Nering, originally for 200 horses, and a second storey was added from 1695 to 1697 for the Academie der Mahler-, Bildhauer- und Architectur-Kunst, founded in 1696. From 1696 to 1700, Martin Grünberg extended the complex northwards for the new Societät der Wissenschaften, doubling the perimeter out to the Letzten Straße (later: Dorotheenstraße)). From 1700 until 1711, the observatory, a tower built by Grünberg with three levels, was added to the northern wing of the installation. The 27-meter-high building was one of the first tower observatories of the 18th century. The observatory became partly usable in 1706 and by 1709 was more or less completed. On 15 January 1711 the ″Königlich Preußische Sozietät der Wissenschaften″ held its first meeting in the tower and four days later its first formal gathering, at which the observatory was officially handed over. It became an important focus of the Society. In time, its library and natural history collection also came to be housed under the same roof. The Society was reorganized by Frederick II in 1744 as the ″Royal Academy of Sciences″ (″Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften″) and retained its base there until 1752.

Gottfried Kirch died in 1710, a year before the official opening of the Academy and the Observatory. His assistant Johann Heinrich Hoffmann moved up to replace him as the head of the observatory. After his death in 1716 Christfried Kirch, the son of Gottfried Kirch, became his successor. He was aided in his work on the calendar by his mother Maria Margarethe Kirch and his sister, just like he and his mother once helped his father. His mother died in 1720. From 1720 until 1736 he was assisted with the practical activities by J. G. Schütz. After the death of Christfried Kirch he took on the post of director in 1740. For many years the calculations for the calendar were continued the most part by Christine Kirch; she was also responsible for the keeping of the accounts. During the years of "Old Observatory" questions of astronomy were also discussed and grappled with in Berlin by the likes of, among others, Leonhard Euler, Joseph Louis Lagrange and Johann Heinrich Lambert. In 1765, Giovanni_Salvemini (aka Johann Castillon) received the position of First Astronomer. In 1768, the Observatory received a mural quadrant constructed by John Bird, their first really important observing instrument. This device can now be seen in Babelsberg Observatory.

Johann III Bernoulli served from 1764 to 1787 as Director of the Old Observatory and was succeeded by Johann Elert Bode. Lambert fetched Bode to Berlin in 1773, in order to publish an almanac; after Lambert' death, Bode became the sole editor. The first edition of the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch (for 1776) had already appeared by 1774, initiating the longest-lasting publication series in astronomy, lasting until 1959. By virtue of this medium, Berlin Observatory developed into an information source of prime importance within Europe. Originally Bode had the venerable Christine Kirch to assist him with the work on the calendar. In 1774, he married a granddaughter of one of her sisters; she was likewise entrusted with astronomical work in line with the Kirch family tradition. Christine Kirch died in 1782. As director of the observatory, Bode was able, through favors from Frederick William III of Prussia, to extend the till then rather third-class-equipped institution with a second observing level. When Bode entered a petition to this effect on 2 November 1798, space for observing within the tower was still limited to the third storey. The two storeys over it were united to a single spacious level. From there, the observing activities could be extended, once the calculated cost of 4465 Thalers and the plan was approved on 7 April 1800 and the required conversion was completed by June 1801. The construction work was supervised by Oberhofbaurat and Schlossbaumeister Bock.

In 1797 Johann Georg Soldner arrived in Berlin as Bode's co-worker and in 1801 (″Astronomisches Jahrbuch für 1804″) Soldner's work appeared on the weight of light with implications for the curving of light rays in a gravitational field. In 1805 Jabbo Oltmanns came to Berlin and assisted Bode with his astronomical observations and his work on the Jahrbuch, in which also the first of his own articles appeared. Oltmanns also became an assistant to Alexander von Humboldt and processed the positional data from his just completed research expedition through Mid- and South America; during this work, Humboldt was ordered to Paris on a diplomatic mission after Napoleon's occupation of Berlin in 1806 and Oltmanns followed him in 1808. Until 1811, the astronomical institute financed itself almost exclusively from the monopoly on the calendar calculations, which had been conferred on the Academy at the time of its founding; in that year the Academy lost its calendar privileges and became dependent on the state budget and on charity.

When the time came to seek a successor by virtue of Bode's retirement, both Carl Friedrich Gauß and Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel turned the post down. On the recommendation of Bessel, Johann Franz Encke, since 1822 Director of the Seeberg Observatory near Gotha, was called to Berlin by King Frederick William III in 1825 and named director of the Berlin Observatory. Thanks to the influence of Alexander von Humboldt, expensive instruments were obtained and with his aid Encke was also able to get the Prussian King to agree to the construction of a new observatory, situated on the edge of the city at that time. A condition was that the observatory should be made available to the public on two evenings in the week.

The main instrument was a new refractor from the München (Munich) workshop of Joseph von Fraunhofer with an inner aperture of 9 inches (24.4 cm) and an inner focal length of 4.33 meters. Humboldt submitted a request for its purchase on 9 October 1828, including a meridian circle from the instrument maker of Berlin and a chronometer from the Berlin clockmaker. As a result, six days later, Frederick William III grant…

Text taken from Wikipedia - Berlin Observatory under the CC-BY-SA-3.0 on April 13, 2023

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