What is Berlin Observatory?
[[File:Sternwarte_Berlin_Schinkel.jpg|link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sternwarte_Berlin_Schinkel.jpg|thumb|1838 painting of the Berlin Observatory.]] [[Image:Berliner Sternwarte Babelsberg.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The Berlin Observatory in 2006.]] The '''Berlin Observatory''' ('''Berliner Sternwarte''' in [[German language|German]]) has its origins in 1700 when [[Gottfried Leibniz]] initiated the ''Societät der Wissenschaften'' (Brandenburgische Science Society) which would later (1744) become the ''Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften'' ([[Prussian Academy of Sciences]]). The Society had no observatory, but nevertheless had an astronomer, [[Gottfried Kirch]], who observed from a private observatory in [[Berlin]]. A first small observatory was furnished in 1711, financing itself through calendrical computations. [[Johann Franz Encke]] was appointed director by King [[Frederick William III of Prussia]] in 1825. With the help of [[Alexander von Humboldt]], Encke got the King to agree to finance a true observatory, but on condition was that the observatory be made accessible to the public two nights per week. The building was designed by [[Karl Friedrich Schinkel]], and began working in 1835. It now has the IAU observatory code 548. {{sci-stub}} [[Category:Observatories]]