Bavarian Degree Measurement Commission

The Bavarian Degree Measurement Commission was founded in Munich around 1865 on the initiative of Austria-Hungary . As a geodetic special study group , it should do justice to the increasing importance of scientific earth measurements . The name is derived from the methods of degree measurement , which were used from around 1800 to determine the exact shape of the earth and adjacent ellipsoids for the upward trend in land surveying .

The organization was based on the Austrian Degree Measurement Commission founded in Vienna in 1863 , which was under the leadership of the Military Geographic Institute and some geodesy professors from the Technical University of Vienna .

In the Bavarian commission worked u. a. the Munich university professor Karl Maximilian von Bauernfeind and his assistant Christian August Vogler . Unlike in Austria-Hungary, the focus was less on the degree measurement and more on the precision leveling due to the smaller national territory .

Around the same time, the Central European Degree Measurement Commission was founded, in which v. a. Austria and Germany tried to coordinate their research projects for higher geodesy , and a little later, on the initiative of Friedrich Robert Helmert, further commissions in Prussia , Württemberg and smaller countries.