Old Observatory (Bonn)

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Old observatory building

The old observatory in Bonn is a historic observatory from the 19th century. It is located in the southern part of the city at Poppelsdorfer Allee 47. It was founded by Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander . Both the main building and a single telescopic dome on the property ("refractory") are listed as historical monuments . In 2018, the old observatory was also included in the list of " Outstanding Astronomical Heritage " of the International Astronomical Union .

history

The design of the observatory, revised by Karl Friedrich Schinkel , 1838
Seal of the Royal Observatory.
Ink imprint
Bonn Observatory
Photograph 1893

After his call to the University of Bonn in 1836, Argelander succeeded in building his own observatory through his friendship with the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . Designed in 1837 by Argelander and university building inspector Peter Josef Leydel (1798–1845) in the classicist style, the building was erected from 1840 to 1844 after a few design corrections by Karl Friedrich Schinkel . The observatory finally went into operation in 1845. The text in the official seal read the Royal Observatory in Bonn . As early as 1837, Argelander had suggested that the Prussian Minister of Education and Culture Karl vom Stein procure instruments for the observatory. This included 11 observation instruments, astronomical pendulum clocks and barometers. With some of these instruments he carried out the Bonn survey . This included a heliometer as a lens telescope from Merz and Mahler from Munich and a comet finder from the same company.

The “Great Refractor Room” of the observatory was built in 1899. From 1952, some of the telescopes were relocated to the new Hoher List observatory in the Eifel . In 1973 the observatory moved together with the other astronomical institutes of the university to Endenich, today they together form the Argelander Institute for Astronomy . The refractory room of the Old Observatory has been used by the Volkssternwarte Bonn since 1975 . Some of the instruments are now in the University Museum Bonn , some in the Deutsches Museum in Munich .

For a long time, the Department of Media Studies at the Institute for Linguistics, Media and Musicology at the University of Bonn was located in the Old Observatory, but is now in Lennéstraße near the Hofgarten . The Bonn campus radio bonncampus96,8 and, from 2013, its successor bonnFM broadcast from the basement of the old observatory, but in 2017 bonnFM moved into a new studio on Adenauerallee near the Hofgarten.

architecture

The IAU describes the Bonn old observatory together with the Berlin observatory from 1835 as an important example of the typical cross-shaped architecture of observatories of that time. The building is assigned to classicism . It has a main dome and a total of six secondary domes, two on each of the three side wings. While these domes on the main building are all cylindrical, the dome of the stand-alone refractory from 1899 has the hemispherical shape that is more common in more modern observatories.

Todays situation

In the old observatory today is u. a. The Bonn Graduate Center is still located, but the building is partially in need of renovation.

literature

Web links

Commons : Alte Sternwarte  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of monuments of the city of Bonn (as of March 15, 2019), p. 45, numbers A 163 and A 941
  2. ↑ https://www.uni-bonn.de/neues/230-2018
  3. ^ Gisbert Knopp , Wilfried Hansemann: Rheinische Kunststätten-Universitätsbauten in Bonn. Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection , Cologne 1987, ISBN 3880945683
  4. ↑ a b Volkssternwarte Bonn - About the association ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ a b c General-Anzeiger Bonn, October 16, 2018, p. 12
  6. ↑ a b c IAU - Outstanding Astronomical Heritage Description: Old Bonn observatory
  7. ^ Department of Media Studies, Institute for Linguistics, Media and Music Studies at the University of Bonn ( Memento from October 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 50 ° 43 '40.1 "  N , 7 ° 5' 51.3"  E