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.
Public Observatory Regensburg
The precursor of the currently existing observatory was founded in 1774 at the Saint Emmeram's Abbey. Prince-Abbot Frobenius Forster dedicated two towers of the abbey which were prepared for astronomical and meteorological observations in the years 1774 and 1775. When the abbey was dissolved in 1812, the observatory was moved into a tower in the city wall. This tower was named "Placidustower" after Placidus Heinrich, one of its first users and a monk of the Order of Saint Benedict. Placidus Heinrich introduced astronomy as a subject at the Lyzeum in Regensburg, a university dedicated to Philosophy and Theology. The remaining instruments are now part of the historical collection at the University of Regensburg.