History
of the Observatory
1.
EARLY HISTORY
The current location of the Hamburg observatory is in Bergedorf (the observatory is referred to by the staff simply as “Bergedorf”, and this name will be used in this paper, although its official name is Hamburger Sternwarte), a small community just east of the city of Hamburg in northern Germany. This was not always the case, however. Johann Georg Repsold (1770 – 1830) was a fireman in the city who also maintained lighthouse equipment in his own workshop. For extra income, he was permitted to use this workshop for private purposes and having taken lessons in astronomy and mathematics, had an interest in building astronomical observing instruments. In 1799, the Swiss Johann Caspar Horner received a commission to survey the Weser, Elbe and Eider rivers and needed good quality optical equipment. Repsold’s workshop seemed well suited to the task, and the order for the equipment awakened Repsold’s astronomical interests. In 1802, with the permission of the Senate, he built a private observatory in the city itself. He equipped the observatory with instruments built in his own workshop, which included an 8-foot meridian circle, three and a half feet (1.1m) in diameter. This was installed in 1803 and observations began in August that year.1, 18
Fig.
1. Johann Georg Repsold, founder of the Hamburg Observatory.18
Napoleon’s
occupation of the city from 1810 December 13 effectively put an end to the
observatory’s activities, and it was demolished in 1811. Undeterred,
Repsold wished to build a new observatory and in the same year wrote a
letter to the Senate elaborating his plans. It was not, however, until
1820 that the Senate agreed to this, on the condition that Repsold provide
all the instrumentation free of charge. By this time of course, shipping
had become extremely important to the growing port city, and there was a
growing realisation that an observatory would support navigation and boost
the reputation and respect of the city worldwide. Building work on the new
observatory started in 1824 and was completed the following year. The new
observatory was located in Millerntor (currently the site of the Museum of
the History of Hamburg) and was unified with the Navigation School (which
occupied the East Wing). Repsold himself was director, although he still
had his fire-fighting duties to attend to. On 1830 January 14 he died
unexpectedly fighting a fire in the centre of the city. Today, Repsold has
a street in central Hamburg named after him and his statue stands outside
the Museum for the History of Hamburg.2, 19
Fig.
2. First publication of the view of Hamburg Observatory in 1829.20
On 1833 December 10 the Senate formally took over the observatory and Christian Carl Ludwig Rümker (1788 – 1862) was offered the directorship. Rümker had helped to found and run the Paramatta Observatory in Sydney, Australia and had recently returned to London, partly to publish his observations with the Royal Society.
Rümker
had a Fraunhofer Refractor at his disposal, and ordered a new Meridian
Circle from the now-famous Repsold workshops – a 1.62m focal length
instrument. Observations focused on comets, asteroids, eclipses and
astrometry. In 1852 Rümker published a catalogue of the positions of
12,000 fixed stars and in 1854 the Royal Society awarded him a Gold Medal
for this work. He retired in 1857 (moving on health grounds to Lisbon,
Portugal to escape Hamburg’s notoriously poor weather) and his son
George Rümker (1832 – 1900) took charge.3, 19
Fig.
4. An excerpt from Carl Rümker’s Stellar Catalogue, published in 1852.20
As
a sign of the increasing importance of nautical affairs in the port city,
in 1863 the Navigation School split with the observatory, and the
capabilities of the observatory itself would be under question until more
powerful instruments were available to supplement those already in use.
Consequently, in 1867 a new 26cm equatorial refractor was delivered from
the Repsold workshops and the capabilities of the observatory were secured
for the near term. The equatorial can still be seen in the observatory
today, and is its oldest instrument.4
Georg
Rümker was a traditionalist, preferring to remain with observations of
comets, asteroids and with astrometry and the new instrument was put to
work mainly on these tasks. The observatory began to lose influence within
the German astronomical community and at the fifth general meeting of the Astronomische
Gesellschaft in August 1873, which took place in Hamburg itself, the
observatory played only a minor role in the most important discussions,
which increasingly leaned towards the nature of the “spiral nebulae”
(which we now know as galaxies). Also, Hamburg observatory did not take
part in the collection of the important AGK1 (Astronomische
Gesellschaft Katalog 1)
catalogue.5