Göttingen Observatory
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| Location | Göttingen, Germany |
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| Coordinates | 51°31′42.54″N 9°56′35.8″E / 51.5284833°N 9.943278°ECoordinates: 51°31′42.54″N 9°56′35.8″E / 51.5284833°N 9.943278°E |
| Established | 1816 |
| Website | http://www.astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de/index.de.html |
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Göttingen Observatory (Universitätssternwarte Göttingen (Göttingen University Observatory) or königliche Sternwarte Göttingen (Royal Observatory Göttingen)) is a German astronomical observatory located in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany.
In 1802, George III of the United Kingdom, who was also the prince-elector of Hanover, allocated 22,680 thalers for a new observatory. The plans were developed, like many of the university's buildings, by Georg Heinrich Borheck. Construction was delayed by the French Revolutionary Wars and extended from 1803 until 1816. At the time, the building was on the outskirts of Göttingen, to ensure an unobstructed view of the night sky.
Carl Friedrich Gauss became the first director of the Observatory, and lived there between 1815 and 1855. Gauss arranged for the installation of two meridian circles (produced by Johann Georg Repsold and Georg Friedrich von Reichenbach in 1818 and 1919.
Gauss was succeeded by Wilhelm Weber and Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, who served as provisional directors (though neither was an astronomer), and Dirichlet was replaced, upon his death, by Gauss's former assistant, Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Klinkerfues. In 1868, the research institution was divided into theoretical and practical sections, with the former moving to Hainberg hill. Some problems of the building were fixed by renovations between 1887 and 1888. Klinkerfues continued to run the observatory until his death in 1884, and Karl Schwarzschild assumed the directorship in 1901. Scharzschild was succeed as director first by Johannes Franz Hartmann, and then by Hans Kienle.
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