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.
Leuschner Observatory
In 1898, Armin Otto Leuschner was appointed the director of the Students' Observatory, a post that he held until his retirement in 1938. During this time, "the observatory became a center for the computation of the orbits of comets, minor planets, and satellites." Astronomer Simon Newcomb said that Leuschner organized the department and observatory into "a thorough school of astronomy, than which [...] there is none better." After he stepped down, the observatory was directed by a series of well regarded astronomers, including Otto Struve from 1950–59 and Louis G. Henyey from 1959–64. The Students' Observatory was renamed Leuschner Observatory by the Regents of the University of California in 1951 in honor of A. O. Leuschner. The Space Sciences Lab, which operates SETI, began operations in 1960 at Leuschner Observatory until a permanent home in the Berkeley hills was completed in 1966.