Berlin Observatory
The Berlin Observatory (Berliner Sternwarte) is a German astronomical institution with a series of observatories and related organizations in and around the city of Berlin in Germany, starting from the 18th century. It has its origins in 1700 when Gottfried Leibniz initiated the "Brandenburg Society of Science″ ("Sozietät der Wissenschaften") which would later (1744) become the Prussian Academy of Sciences ("Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften"). The Society had no observatory but nevertheless an astronomer, Gottfried Kirch, who observed from a private observatory in Berlin. A first small observatory was furnished in 1711, financing itself by calendrical computations.
Park Milutin Milanković
New building of the Belgrade Observatory, as previously a rented private house was used, was built and opened on 1 May 1891 on the location of modern park. The site atop of Vračar hill was specifically chosen due to its elevation. The building was specifically constructed for that purpose. It was constructed according to the design of architect Dimitrije T. Leko and equipped with the modern small instruments for astronomical and meteorological observations. Two small astronomical pavilions were also built. The Observatory was a workshop for practical training for the students of the Grand School and People’s Observatory, but was opened for the citizens, too – for example, in 1910 the Halley's comet was observed. Apart from its importance for astronomy and meteorology, the newly built Observatory was a cradle of the seismic and geomagnetic researches in Serbia as the observatory was equipped with an seismograph. In 1924, by ruling of the Faculty Council the Observatory was divided into two separate institutions: Astronomical Observatory and Meteorological Observatory of Belgrade University. In 1929 funds were granted for the constructions of a new, modern, observatory, at distance southeast from the city's centre, at the high hill on Veliki Vračar, while the old building remained a meteorological observatory. As original Serbian word for an observatory was "zvezdara", old building became known as the "Stara Zvezdara" (Old Zvezdara) while the new observatory was simply called "Zvezdara", giving its name to the Veliki Vračar hill, the surrounding forest, the neighborhood which developed later and the modern municipality of Zvezdara.