Berlin Observatory Berlin, Germany

What is it? The Berlin Observatory is a series of observatories and related organizations in and around the city of Berlin in Germany, starting from the 18th century.

Orgin Its origins in 1700 when Gottfried Leibniz initiated the Brandenburgische Science Society which would later (1744) become the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

Discovery Where we live, the orbit of the earth adds up to 365 days. But for Neptune, discovered in 1846, a single orbit takes a bit less than 165 Earth years — and the planet has now completed exactly one of those Neptunian years since it was first spotted by the German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle at the Berlin Observatory.

Change in Location At the end of the 19th century the Berlin Observatory, originally built outside the border of the town, scientific observations were almost impossible in this area. Foerster proposed the removal of the observatory to a place with better observational conditions outside Berlin.

Berlin Observatory Old New

European Southern Observatory Southern Hemisphere

Info ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organization in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory.

Ideas The idea that European astronomers should establish a common large observatory arose at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands in the spring of 1953 between Walter Baade and Jan Oort. On the 26th of January 1954, an ESO declaration was signed by leading astronomers from six European countries expressing the wish that a joint European observatory be established in the southern hemisphere.

ESO provides state-of-the-art research facilities to astronomers and is supported by: Austria Belgium Brazil the Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Italy the Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland the United Kingdom. Several other countries have expressed an interest in membership.

TelescopesT ESO has built and operated some of the largest and most technologically advanced telescopes in the world. These include: The New Technology Telescope (NTT) that pioneered active optics technology The Very Large Telescope (VLT), consisting of four 8-metre class telescopes and four 1.8- metre Auxiliary Telescopes.

Telescopes

ALMA ALMA is a revolutionary facility for the observation of the Universe in the millimeter/submillimetre range of radiation and is the largest ground-based astronomy project in existence. Its construction is well under way, being scheduled to be completed in 2013.

E-ELT The E-ELT is a 40-metre class telescope that is currently in detailed design phase and will be the world's largest optical/near-infrared telescope. The light-gathering power of this telescope will allow detailed studies of planets around other stars, the first objects in the Universe, super- massive black holes, and the nature and distribution of the dark matter and dark energy which dominate the Universe.

Findings ESO's observing facilities have made important astronomical discoveries and produced several astronomical catalogues. Recent findings include: the discovery of the farthest gamma-ray burst the evidence for a black hole at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way

Why in the South? The choice of the southern hemisphere resulted from the need to observe the southern sky. At the time, all large reflector telescopes were located in the northern hemisphere. In addition, some of the most interesting objects of research, such as the central parts of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds, were accessible only from the southern hemisphere.

What They Achieve? ESO's telescopes generate vast amounts of data at a high rate, which are stored in a permanent Science Archive Facility at ESO's headquarters. The archive now contains more than 1.5 million images or spectra with a total volume of about 65 terabytes (65,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data.

ESO