Karlsruhe observatory
The Karlsruhe observatory is a public observatory supervised by an amateur astronomical association , whose instruments used to be used partly by the university observatory and later by a school observatory . The observatory is located on the roof of the Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Karlsruhe - Rüppurr . Their geographical position is 8 ° 24 '55 " east longitude and 48 ° 58' 39" north latitude , 125 m above sea level. NN .
history
The idea of setting up an observatory in Karlsruhe goes back to the 19th century.
After being appointed director of the Mannheim observatory in 1875, Wilhelm Valentiner moved the observatory to Karlsruhe, as the location in the Mannheim city center offered increasingly poor observation conditions. In 1880, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, who was interested in astronomy , approved the project and made the Hereditary Prince Garden (now the Nymph Garden) available as a temporary measure, where the instruments were housed in a simple hut. In addition to astronomical observations, the new observatory was to determine the exact time and transmit time signals to the railroad and the Black Forest watch industry by telegraph . The observatory, estimated at just under 400,000 marks, was, however, much to the annoyance of Valentiner, now a professor at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , never built.
In the period that followed, several locations were considered, and the Königstuhl near Heidelberg was ultimately chosen. The observatory was moved there in 1896. The astrometric department took Wilhelm Valentiner, the astrophysical Max Wolf .
In 1957 the State Observatory Heidelberg-Königstuhl offered the city of Karlsruhe a historical refractor with a 6 inch (15 cm) opening as a gift. It was decided to build a school observatory to set up the device there. In 1959 the school observatory of the Max-Planck-Gymnasium was inaugurated.
In 1979 the Karlsruhe Astronomical Association , which had previously operated a public observatory at the Kant-Gymnasium in downtown Karlsruhe, took over the supervision and has been conducting public observations of the sky ever since.
In 1986 the instruments were supplemented by a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope . In 2003 the state of Baden-Württemberg added the observatory and the refractor to the list of monuments .
The Volkssternwarte Karlsruhe regularly offers public tours of the sky and astronomical lectures.
Instruments
The historic six-inch refractor was commissioned from the Steinheil company in Munich in 1859 . The financing was taken over by Grand Duke Friedrich I. In 1860 the telescope was installed in the restored Mannheim observatory. In 1885 it received a new mount from the Boecker und Fecker (later Ernst Leitz) company in Wetzlar . The Grand Duke had again advanced the money for this because the estates had not approved the funds. After moving to the Königstuhl, the refractor was used to measure star clusters and for teaching and training purposes. In 1924 it was shut down and given to the city of Karlsruhe as a gift in 1957. In 1988 the old Steinheil lens was exchanged for a better corrected 15 cm lens system (coated semi-apochromat ).
The Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope acquired in 1986 has an aperture of 28 cm and a focal length of 2.8 m.
Web links
Website of the Volkssternwarte Karlsruhe
Coordinates: 48 ° 58 ′ 39 ″ N , 8 ° 24 ′ 55 ″ E