Göttingen Observatory is a German astronomical observatory located in Göttingen

Göttingen

Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...

, Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

History

In 1802, George III of the United Kingdom

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

, who was also was the prince-elector

Prince-elector

The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

 of Hanover, allocated 22,680 thaler

Thaler

The Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...

s for a new observatory. However, its construction was delayed by the French Revolutionary Wars

French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...

 and extended from 1803 until 1816. Carl Friedrich Gauß became the first director of the Observatory. Some problems of the building were fixed by renovations between 1887 and 1888. Due to the construction of a new telescope at Hainberg. observations at Göttingen Observatory were halted in 1933. The Observatory buildings were used by the University and after renovations, most recently in 2005, they were restored to their original appearance. Since 2009, the Observatory has housed the Lichtenberg-Kolleg Institute for Advanced Study.

Outposts

To improve observations, a new observatory was planned on the Hainberg, a small hill south east of Göttingen. After the opening of a new observatory there in 1929, the instruments were transferred from Göttingen to this new location. In 1941, during World War II, Paul ten Bruggencate

Paul ten Bruggencate

Paul ten Bruggencate was a German astronomer and astrophysicist.-Youth and education:Ten Bruggencate was born in Arosa, Switzerland and went to several schools in Switzerland, in the Netherlands and in Germany. He further studied at the University of Munich and started his PhD work with Hugo von...

 became the director of the Göttingen University Observatory. In pursuit of his interest in observing the Sun, he looked for a new solar telescope

Solar telescope

A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum.-Professional solar telescopes:...

. With the help of the military, he was able to build a solar telescope near the already existing telescope at Hainberg. Unsatisfied with the cloudy weather conditions in Germany, ten Bruggencate established another solar observatory in Switzerland: the Locarno Observatory was planned and built in the late 1950s. It was closed in 1984 and the equipment was transferred to the Teide Observatory

Teide Observatory

The Observatorio del Teide is an astronomical observatory on Tenerife operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. Opened in 1964, it became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical...

 in Tenerife

Tenerife

Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the seven Canary Islands, it is also the most populated island of Spain, with a land area of 2,034.38 km² and 906,854 inhabitants, 43% of the total population of the Canary Islands. About five million tourists visit Tenerife each year, the...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, where the University of Göttingen now shares the operation of several solar telescopes.