Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise nine undergraduate and graduate schools, among which are the School of Foreign Service, School of Business, Medical School, and Law School. Located on a hill above the Potomac River, the school's main campus is identifiable by its flagship Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark. Georgetown offers degree programs in forty-eight disciplines, enrolling an average of 7,500 undergraduate and 10,000 post-graduate students from more than 130 countries.
Georgetown University Astronomical Observatory
The Georgetown University Astronomical Observatory (also the Heyden Observatory and Francis J. Heyden Observatory) was founded in 1841 by Father James Curley of the Department of Physics at Georgetown College. Father Curley chose a site on the college grounds, planned the building, and supervised its construction to its completion in 1844. Costs were initially paid by Rev. Thomas Meredith Jenkins, S.J., and Rev. Charles H. Stonestreet, S.J., who were Georgetown professors at the time. The observatory was used in 1846 to determine the latitude and longitude of Washington, D.C., which Curley determined to be latitude 38°54′26N and longitude 5818.29 (west of Greenwich).