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85-764: The AIP is privately funded and member of the Leibniz Association . It is located in Babelsberg in the state of Brandenburg , just west of Berlin , though the Einstein Tower solar observatory and the great refractor telescope on Telegrafenberg in Potsdam belong to the AIP. The key topics of the AIP are cosmic magnetic fields ( magnetohydrodynamics ) on various scales and extragalactic astrophysics . Astronomical and astrophysical fields studied at

170-581: A Republic at the end of World War I . After the Nazis seized power in 1933 , there was a ceremonial handshake between President Paul von Hindenburg and the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 21 March 1933 in Potsdam's Garrison Church in what became known as the " Day of Potsdam ". This symbolised a coalition of the military ( Reichswehr ) and Nazism . Potsdam was severely damaged by Allied bombing raids during World War II . The Cecilienhof Palace

255-452: A 24 m dome. It was inaugurated in a great celebration by the German emperor, Wilhelm II . Although it did not realize all the hopes astronomers had for it, nevertheless two important discoveries should be mentioned: the interstellar calcium lines in the spectrum of the spectroscopic binary Delta Orionis by Johannes Hartmann in 1904 and the presence of stellar calcium emission lines —

340-532: A centre of science in Germany in the 19th century. Today, there are three public colleges, the University of Potsdam , and more than 30 research institutes in the city. The area was formed from a series of large moraines left after the last glacial period . Today, only one quarter of the city is built up, the rest remaining as green space. There are about 20 lakes and rivers in and around Potsdam, such as

425-493: A conference which defined Germany's history for the following 45 years. Babelsberg , in the south-eastern part of Potsdam, was already by the 1930s the home of a major film production studio and it has enjoyed success as an important center of European film production since the fall of the Berlin Wall . The Filmstudio Babelsberg , founded in 1912, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world. Potsdam developed into

510-409: A hint of stellar surface activity — by Gustav Eberhard and Hans Ludendorff about 1900. Ten years later one of the most famous astrophysicists of this century, Karl Schwarzschild , became director of the observatory. In only a few years of work (by 1916 he had died from a chronic illness) he had made fundamental contributions in astrophysics and to General Relativity Theory . Only a few weeks after

595-453: A new type of solar telescope, which supersedes the previous 45 cm Gregory-Coudé telescope. GREGOR is equipped with adaptive optics and will achieve a resolution of 70 km of the Sun's surface. The investigation of these small structures is important for the understanding of the underlying processes of the interaction of magnetic fields with plasma turbulence on the Sun. The development of

680-559: A single signal. One of these international LOFAR stations has been constructed in Bornim by Potsdam and is being operated by the AIP. Solar Orbiter is an international mission led by the European Space Agency (ESA), with participation from NASA. It was launched on 10 February 2020, and it will observe the Sun for at least seven years. The scientific payload consists of 10 instruments: four in-situ instruments that measure

765-512: A temperature- and pressure-stabilized room within the telescope column. The light will be conducted by fiber optics from the telescope to the spectrograph. STELLA is a robotic observatory that consists of two 1.2 m telescopes. It is a long-term project to observe indicators of stellar activity of Sun-like stars. The operation occurs unattended — the telescopes decide the appropriate observation strategy automatically. The radio observatory OSRA has been observing and recording radio emission from

850-602: Is a union of German non-university research institutes from various disciplines. As of 2020, 96 non-university research institutes and service institutions for science are part of the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft. The fields range from natural science, engineering, and ecology, to economics, other social sciences, spatial science , and humanities. The Leibniz Institutes work in an interdisciplinary fashion, and connect basic and applied science. They cooperate with universities, industry, and other partners in different parts of

935-467: Is an e-Science project, that creates a virtual observation platform to support modern astrophysical research in Germany. It is the German contribution to international efforts to establish a general Virtual Observatory . GAVO enables standardized access to German and international data archives. GREGOR is a 1.5 m telescope for solar research of the Teide Observatory on Tenerife. It is

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1020-450: Is optimized for the observation of normal galaxies out to very high redshift. It will furthermore deliver detailed studies of nearby normal, interacting, and starburst galaxies. PEPSI is a high-resolution spectrograph for the LBT . It will enable the simultaneous observation of circularly and linearly polarized light with high spectral and temporal resolution. The spectrograph is situated in

1105-401: Is quite different. Those in the north and in the centre consist mainly of historical buildings, the south of the city is dominated by larger areas of newer buildings. The city of Potsdam is divided into 32 Stadtteile (boroughs, both quarters and suburbs/wards together), which are divided further into 84 statistical Bezirke (districts). Today, one distinguishes between the older parts of

1190-540: Is served by several motorways : the A 10 , a beltway better known as Berliner Ring , the A 115 (using part of the AVUS ) and is closely linked to the A 2 and A 9 . The B 1 and B 2 federal roads cross the city. Potsdam features a network of urban and suburban buses. Potsdam is connected to national and international air traffic via Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), which is around 40 kilometers to

1275-526: Is that it derives from an old West Slavonic term meaning "beneath the oaks", i.e., the corrupted pod dubmi/dubimi ( pod "beneath", dub "oak"). However, some question this explanation. The area around Potsdam shows signs of occupancy since the Bronze Age and was part of Magna Germania as described by Tacitus . After the great migrations of the Germanic peoples, Slavs moved in and Potsdam

1360-733: The Fachhochschule Potsdam was founded as the second college. It had 3,518 students as of 2017. Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg (HFF), founded in 1954 in Babelsberg , is the foremost centre of the German film industry since its birth, with over 600 students. There are also several research foundations, including Fraunhofer Institutes for Applied Polymer Research and Biomedical Engineering, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics ( Albert Einstein Institute ), Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, and Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology,

1445-830: The Wende in 1991). In 1711 the first observatory was built in Dorotheen Street in Berlin and in 1835 a new observatory building, which was designed by the famous architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel , was completed in Linden Street (near Hallesches Tor). Alexander von Humboldt was then promoting astronomy by his famous "Kosmos" lectures in 1827–28. He played an important role in providing the funds for both observatory and instruments. The Berlin Observatory became known worldwide when Johann Gottfried Galle discovered

1530-554: The German Emperor until 1918. Its planning embodied ideas of the Age of Enlightenment : through a careful balance of architecture and landscape, Potsdam was intended as "a picturesque, pastoral dream" which would remind its residents of their relationship with nature and reason. The city, which is over 1,000 years old, is widely known for its palaces, its lakes, and its overall historical and cultural significance. Landmarks include

1615-521: The Havel , the Griebnitzsee , Templiner See , Tiefer See , Jungfernsee , Teltowkanal, Heiliger See , and Sacrower See . The highest point is the 114-metre (374 ft) high Kleiner Ravensberg . Potsdam is divided into seven historic city Stadtteile (quarters) and nine new Ortsteile (suburbs/wards, former separate villages), which joined the city in 2003. The appearance of the city boroughs

1700-814: The Nature Index based on scientific publication rates, ranked the Leibniz Association as 3rd in Germany and 56th across the globe. Evolution and Biodiversity at the Humboldt University Berlin Potsdam Potsdam ( German pronunciation: [ˈpotsdam] ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Brandenburg . It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region . Potsdam sits on

1785-711: The Netherlands and Bohemia . The edict accelerated population growth and economic recovery. Later, the city became a full residence of the Prussian royal family. The buildings of the royal residences were built mainly during the reign of Frederick the Great . One of these is the Sanssouci Palace (French: "without cares" or "no concern", by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff , 1744), famed for its formal gardens and Rococo interiors. Other royal residences include

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1870-600: The New Palace and the Orangery . In 1815, at the formation of the Province of Brandenburg , Potsdam became the provincial capital until 1918, except for a period between 1827 and 1843 when Berlin was the provincial capital (as it became once again after 1918). The province comprised two governorates named after their capitals Potsdam and Frankfurt (Oder) . Between 1815 and 1945, the city of Potsdam served as capital of

1955-594: The Regierungsbezirk of Potsdam  [ de ] ( German : Regierungsbezirk Potsdam ). The Regierungsbezirk encompassed the former districts of Uckermark , the Mark of Priegnitz, and the greater part of the Middle March . It was situated between Mecklenburg and the Province of Pomerania on the north, and the Province of Saxony on the south and west (Berlin, with a small surrounding district,

2040-567: The River Havel , a tributary of the Elbe , downstream of Berlin, and lies embedded in a hilly morainic landscape dotted with many lakes, around 20 of which are located within Potsdam's city limits. It lies some 25 kilometres (16 miles) southwest of Berlin's city centre. The name of the city and of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin. Potsdam was a residence of the Prussian kings and

2125-546: The S7 S-Bahn line. The stations served are Griebnitzsee , Babelsberg and the Central Station ( Hauptbahnhof ), the main and long-distance station of the city. Other DB stations in Potsdam are Charlottenhof , Park Sanssouci (including the monumental Kaiserbahnhof ), Medienstadt Babelsberg , Rehbrücke , Pirschheide and Marquardt . The city also possesses a 27 km-long tramway network . Potsdam

2210-666: The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). A continuous Hohenzollern possession since 1415, Potsdam became prominent, when it was chosen in 1660 as the hunting residence of Frederick William I , Elector of Brandenburg , the core of the powerful state that later became the Kingdom of Prussia . It also housed Prussian barracks . After the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Potsdam became a centre of European immigration. Its religious freedom attracted people from France ( Huguenots ), Russia ,

2295-585: The VLT of the ESO . Furthermore, work on several e-Science projects are carried out at the AIP. The history of astronomy in Potsdam really began in Berlin in 1700. Initiated by Gottfried W. Leibniz , on July 11, 1700 the "Brandenburgische Societät" (later called the Prussian Academy of Sciences ) was founded by the elector Friedrich III in Berlin. Two months earlier the national calendar monopoly provided

2380-809: The 122 cm telescope (whose former building now houses the AIP library), were dismounted and removed to the Soviet Union as war reparations. Now the 122 cm telescope works in the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory . In January 1947 the German Academy of Sciences took the AOP and the Babelsberg Observatory under its administration, but it was not until the beginning of the 1950s before astronomical research started anew. AOP director Hans Kienle took over

2465-701: The 4 m VISTA (telescope) and perform a 5-year survey of both galactic and extra-galactic targets. Whereas the hardware has been designed and built by an international team of collaborators, the instrument is being assembled and tested at AIP. Contrary to most ESO projects, it shall be jointly operated by both ESO and the scientific consortium, with project management continuing to be hosted at AIP. 52°24′18″N 13°06′15″E  /  52.40500°N 13.10417°E  / 52.40500; 13.10417 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community The Leibniz Association (German: Leibniz-Gemeinschaft or Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz )

2550-650: The AIP range from solar and stellar physics to stellar and galactic evolution to cosmology . The institute also develops research technology in the fields of spectroscopy and robotic telescopes . It is a partner of the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, has erected robotic telescopes in Tenerife and the Antarctic, develops astronomical instrumentation for large telescopes such as

2635-510: The AOP was founded. Even before the construction of the observatory had started in the autumn of 1876, solar observations were being made from the tower of the former military orphanage in Linden Street in Potsdam by Gustav Spörer . The construction work started in 1876; the main observatory building and its equipment were finished in the autumn of 1879. The AOP was managed by a board of directors comprising Wilhelm Julius Foerster , Gustav Kirchhoff and Arthur Auwers . In 1882 Carl Hermann Vogel

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2720-525: The Brandenburg and Berlin region. Potsdam was historically a centre of European immigration. Its religious tolerance attracted people from France, Russia, the Netherlands and Bohemia. This is still visible in the culture and architecture of the city. The most popular attraction in Potsdam is Sanssouci Park , 2 km (1 mi) west of the city centre. In 1744 King Frederick the Great ordered

2805-699: The Central Institute for Astrophysics suffered strongly from the isolation of the GDR from the western world. It was very difficult to come into contact with western colleagues. After the autumn 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall , new possibilities at once arose. On the basis of the prescriptions of the Unification Agreement for the Academy of Sciences of the GDR , the Central Institute of Astrophysics

2890-689: The GFZ – German Research Centre for Geosciences , the Potsdam Astrophysical Institute, the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, The Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which employs 340 people in researching climate change . As well as universities, Potsdam is home to reputable secondary schools . Montessori Gesamtschule Potsdam , in western Potsdam, attracts 400 students from

2975-555: The Great Refractor and Einstein Tower at Telegrafenberg. Since then, the AIP has broadened its research areas, initiated several new technical projects, and participates in several large international research projects (see below). On April 15, 2011, the name of the AIP was changed to "Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam", to emphasize the affiliation of the institute with the Leibniz Association. The institute retains

3060-652: The Gregor telescope will be led by the Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS) with the participation of several institutes. The telescope is named after James Gregory , the inventor of the Gregorian telescope . The AIP is a partner in the LBT Consortium (LBTC) and contributes financially and materially in the construction of the Large Binocular Telescope . This entails both the development and

3145-459: The Sun's corona every day from 1990 until 2007. It was composed of four antennas, observing in four different frequency bands: 40–80 MHz, 100–170 MHz, 200–400 MHz and 400–800 MHz. The antennas were robotised to follow the Sun automatically. The observatory was located in Tremsdorf, near Potsdam. 4MOST is a multi-fiber, multi-spectrograph instrument that shall replace VIRCAM at

3230-521: The Sun, explosive energy dissipation processes in plasmas, variable stars and stellar activity. Another part was directed to the early phases of cosmic evolution and the origin of structures in the Universe , large-scale structures up to those of superclusters and to active galaxies . In this connection special methods of image processing have been developed. In addition, investigations in astrometry have also been performed. The scientific work of

3315-618: The Thuringian Sonneberg Observatory , and Karl Schwarzschild Observatory Tautenburg , were joined in the course of academy reform to the Central Institute of Astrophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. The solar observatory Einstein Tower and Observatory for Solar Radio Astronomy were affiliated later. One part of the scientific activities concerned cosmic magnetic fields and cosmic dynamos, phenomena of turbulence , magnetic and eruptive processes on

3400-464: The abbreviation "AIP", as well as the "aip.de" Internet domain. The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is a new telescope on Mt. Grahams in Arizona. The LBT consists of 2 huge 8.4 m telescopes on a common mount. With their 110 square meter area, the LBT is the largest telescope in the world on a single mount, only surpassed by the combined VLTs and Kecks. The Radial Velocity Experiment measures until 2010

3485-676: The basis for the astronomical observatories in Potsdam: in 1874 the foundation of the AOP on the Telegrafenberg and in 1913 the removal of the Berlin Observatory to Babelsberg. In the middle of the 19th century spectral analysis was developed by Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen . It enabled the acquisition of information on the physical parameters and chemical abundances of stars, by the spectral analysis of their light. Foerster recognized these possibilities and initiated

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3570-482: The beginning of 1931 the Sonneberg Observatory founded by Cuno Hoffmeister was attached to the Babelsberg Observatory. For more than 60 years a photographic sky survey was carried out, which represents the second largest archive of astronomical photographic plates. This archive and the discovery and investigation of variable stars popularized the name Sonneberg all over the astronomical world. With

3655-586: The beginning of the fascist regime, the fortunes of astronomy in Potsdam as well as in Babelsberg started to decline. The banishment of Jewish co-workers played an essential role in this process. The beginning of the Second World War practically marked the cessation of astronomical research. The new start after the war was very difficult. In Potsdam the Einstein Tower had suffered heavy damage by bombs, in Babelsberg valuable instruments, among them

3740-414: The building of a solar observatory in 1871 as a memorial to the crown prince, in which he emphasized the importance and profit of solar research. This idea was soon extended to the whole of astrophysics. The site of the observatory was chosen on a hill south of Potsdam , the Telegrafenberg, on which had been, from 1832 to 1848, a relay station of the military telegraph from Berlin to Koblenz. On 1 July 1874

3825-471: The cellar of the main building of the AOP, that were to disprove the movement of the Earth through a hypothetical aether . His negative results were fundamentally reconciled only through Einstein's Special Relativity theory of 1905. To prove the gravitational redshift of spectral lines of the Sun — an effect proposed by Einstein's theory of General Relativity — was the aim of a solar tower telescope , which

3910-476: The city (areas of the historic city and places suburbanized at the latest in 1939) – these are the city center, the western and northern suburbs, Bornim, Bornstedt, Nedlitz, Potsdam South, Babelsberg, Drewitz, Stern and Kirchsteigfeld – and those communities incorporated after 1990 which have since 2003 become Ortsteile – these are Eiche, Fahrland, Golm, Groß Glienicke, Grube, Marquardt, Neu Fahrland, Satzkorn and Uetz-Paaren. The new Ortsteile are located mainly in

3995-507: The city has a humid continental climate ( Dfb ), which also shows a slight influence of the continent different from the climates predominantly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean . Low averages below freezing for almost all winter causing snows that are frequent and winters are cold, but not as stringent as inland locations or with greater influence from the same. Summer is also relatively warm with temperatures between 23 and 24 °C,

4080-584: The construction of a residence here, where he could live sans souci ("without worries", in the French spoken at the court). The park hosts a botanical garden ( Botanical Garden, Potsdam ) and many buildings: Three gates from the original city wall remain today. The oldest is the Hunters' Gate ( Jägertor ), built in 1733. The Nauener Tor was built in 1755 and close to the historic Dutch Quarter. The ornate Brandenburg Gate (built in 1770, not to be confused with

4165-584: The construction of the Berlin Wall . The walling off of West Berlin not only isolated Potsdam from West Berlin, but also doubled commuting times to East Berlin . The Glienicke Bridge across the Havel connected the city to West Berlin and was the scene of some Cold War exchanges of spies . After German reunification , Potsdam became the capital of the newly re-established state of Brandenburg . Since then there have been many ideas and efforts to reconstruct

4250-418: The distances of more than a million galaxies and quasars will be estimated. With the help of this study, astronomers will be able to assess the distribution of large-scale structures in the Universe. This can provide hints about the story of the development of the Universe. LOFAR is a European radio interferometer, that measures radio waves with many individual antennas in different places which it combines to

4335-400: The east. Potsdam is a university town . The University of Potsdam was founded in 1991 as a university of the State of Brandenburg. Its predecessor was the Akademie für Staats- und Rechtswissenschaften der DDR " Walter Ulbricht " , a college of education founded in 1948 which was one of the GDR's most important colleges. There are about 20,000 students enrolled at the university. In 1991

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4420-407: The editorial duties of the professional journal Astronomical Notes (German: Astronomische Nachrichten ), which is to this day edited at the AIP and moreover the oldest professional journal for astronomy. In June 1954 the Observatory for Solar Radio Astronomy (OSRA) in Tremsdorf (17 km southeast of Potsdam) began its work as a part of the AOP. Its history started in 1896: after the discovery of

4505-441: The elevation to rank of urban Bezirk or affiliation with Potsdam governorate, respectively): Berlin was the capital of Prussia and later of the German Empire , but the court remained in Potsdam, where many government officials settled. In 1914, Emperor Wilhelm II signed the Declaration of War in the Neues Palais (New Palace). The city lost its status as a "second capital" in 1918, when Wilhelm II abdicated and Germany became

4590-405: The fabrication of the optics and the mechanical and electronic components as well as the development of the software for the acquisition, guiding and wavefront sensing units (AGWs). The AGW units are essential components of the telescope and indispensable for the adaptive optics . The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is an instrument of the second generation for the VLT of the ESO . MUSE

4675-446: The first objective method of measuring the brightness of stars. When the 122 cm telescope (at this time the second largest in the world) was finished, the Babelsberg Observatory was the best-equipped observatory of Europe. The development of the photoelectric method for investigating weakly variable stars and spectroscopic investigations with the 122 cm telescope made the Babelsberg observatory well-known beyond Europe, too. At

4760-447: The following decades important observational programmes such as the Potsdamer Photometrische Durchmusterung and the outstanding investigations of Walter Grotrian on the solar corona found recognition all over the world. At the end of the 19th century the Berlin Observatory , originally built outside the border of the town, was enclosed by blocks of flats, so scientific observations were almost impossible. Therefore, Foerster proposed

4845-423: The funding for an observatory. By May 18 the first director, Gottfried Kirch , had been appointed. This happened in a hurry, because the profits from the national basic calendar, calculated and sold by the observatory, should have been the financial source for the academy. This kind of financing existed until the beginning of the 19th century, but the basic calendar was calculated until very recently (it stopped after

4930-488: The heat waves being influenced by the UHI of Potsdam. The average winter high temperature is 4.0 °C (39.2 °F), with a low of −1.3 °C (29.7 °F). Snow is common in the winter. Spring and autumn are short. Summers are mild, with a high of 24.3 °C (75.7 °F) and a low of 13.5 °C (56.3 °F). The Potsdam weather station has recorded the following extreme values: The name "Potsdam" originally seems to have been Poztupimi . A common theory

5015-426: The mayor was selected by the NSDAP and the city council was dissolved; it was reconstituted in token form after 1945, but free elections did not take place until after reunification . Today, the city council is the city's central administrative authority. Local elections took place on 26 October 2003 and again in 2008. Between 1990 and 1999, the Chairman of the City Council was known as the "Town President" but today

5100-412: The north of the city. For the history of all incorporations, see the relevant section on incorporation and spin-offs. Structure with statistical numbering: At the end of 2019, a change was made to the administrative structure: Officially the climate is oceanic - more degraded by being far from the coast and to the east ( Köppen : Cfb ), but using the 1961–1990 normal and the 0 °C isotherm

5185-413: The observatory's disposal by the crown free of charge. The costs of the new buildings and the new instruments amounted to 1.5 million Goldmark and could be covered by selling the landed property of the Berlin Observatory. The old observatory built by Schinkel was pulled down later. In June 1911 the construction of a new observatory began in Babelsberg and on 2 August 1913 the removal from Berlin to Babelsberg

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5270-415: The original appearance of the city, including the Potsdam City Palace and the Garrison Church . Since 2000 Potsdam has been one of the fastest-growing cities in Germany. Largest groups of foreign residents: Potsdam has had a mayor ( Bürgermeister ) and city council since the 15th century. From 1809 the city council was elected, with a mayor ( Oberbürgermeister ) at its head. During Nazi Germany ,

5355-422: The parks and palaces of Sanssouci , Germany's largest World Heritage Site, as well as other palaces such as the Orangery Palace , the New Palace , Cecilienhof Palace , and Charlottenhof Palace . Potsdam was also the location of the significant Potsdam Conference in 1945, the conference where the three heads of government of the USSR, the US, and the UK decided on the division of Germany following its surrender,

5440-452: The physical conditions (magnetic field, radio waves, energetic particles...) at the location of the spacecraft, and six remote sensing instruments that observe the Sun and its corona in various wavelength ranges. The AIP is involved in the operations and scientific exploitation of two instruments: the Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX), and the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD). The German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (GAVO)

5525-436: The planet Neptune in 1846. The discoveries of the canal rays by Eugen Goldstein in 1886 in the physical laboratory of the observatory and of the variation in the altitude of the Earth's pole by Karl Friedrich Küstner in 1888 were likewise important. The last two scientific events took place when Wilhelm Julius Foerster was director of the observatory, which was meanwhile attached to the University of Berlin. He prepared

5610-410: The post is the "Chairman of the City Council". The mayor is elected directly by the population. The current mayor is Mike Schubert of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) since 2018. The most recent mayoral election was held on 23 September 2018, with a runoff held on 14 October, and the results were as follows: The city council governs the city alongside the mayor. The most recent city council election

5695-462: The radial velocities and elemental abundances of a million stars, predominantly in the southern celestial hemisphere. The 6dF multi-object spectrograph on the 1.2 m UK Schmidt telescope of the Anglo-Australian Observatory will be applied for this purpose. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will investigate in detail a quarter of the whole sky and determine the position and absolute brightness of more than 100 million sky objects. Besides that,

5780-440: The radio waves by Heinrich Hertz in 1888, Johannes Wilsing and Julius Scheiner , fellows of the AOP, tried to detect radio emission from the Sun. They did not succeed, because of the low sensitivity of their equipment. After the Second World War Herbert Daene started once again to attempt radio observations of the Sun in Babelsberg which were continued in Tremsdorf. In October 1960 the 2 m telescope built by Carl Zeiss Jena

5865-585: The rank of urban districts. The principal towns were Brandenburg upon Havel , Köpenick , Potsdam, Prenzlau , Spandau and Ruppin . Until 1875 Berlin also was a town within the governorate. After its disentanglement a number of its suburbs outside Berlin's municipal borders grew to towns, many forming urban Bezirke within the governorate of Potsdam such as Charlottenburg , Lichtenberg , Rixdorf (after 1912 Neukölln), and Schöneberg (all of which, as well as Köpenick and Spandau, incorporated into Greater Berlin in 1920). The urban Bezirke were (years indicating

5950-408: The removal of the observatory to a place outside Berlin with better observational conditions. In 1904 he appointed Karl Hermann Struve , former director of the observatory of Königsberg, as his successor to realize this project. After test observations by Paul Guthnick in the summer of 1906 a new site was found on a hill in the eastern part of the Royal Park of Babelsberg . The ground was placed at

6035-404: The theory's publication by Einstein, Schwarzschild found the first solution of the Einstein equations , which is now named after him as the " Schwarzschild solution " and which is of fundamental importance for the theory of black holes. There exist further close links between the AOP and Einstein's Relativity Theory. In 1881 Albert A. Michelson first performed his interferometer experiments in

6120-577: The war, were demolished. When in 1946 the remainder of the Province of Brandenburg west of the Oder-Neiße line was constituted as the state of Brandenburg , Potsdam became its capital. In 1952 the GDR disestablished its states and replaced them by smaller new East German administrative districts known as Bezirke . Potsdam became the capital of the new Bezirk Potsdam until 1990. Potsdam, south-west of Berlin, lay just outside West Berlin after

6205-476: The work and research carried out by the institutes. The Leibniz-Gemeinschaft is named after the German philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and inventor Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). The Leibniz Association evolved from the "Blaue Liste" (blue list) in former Western Germany and research institutions of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin of the former DDR , whose research capability

6290-592: The world. Taken together, the Leibniz Institutes employ 20,000 people and have a budget of €1.9 billion. Leibniz Institutes are funded publicly to equal parts by the federal government and the Federal states (Bundesländer). Every Leibniz institution is evaluated by the Leibniz Senate regularly, at a minimum of once every seven years. The evaluation is used as a benchmark of quality with respect to

6375-471: Was an urban governorate and enclave within the governorate of Potsdam between 1815 and 1822, then it merged as urban district into the governorate only to be disentangled again from Potsdam governorate in 1875, becoming a distinct province-like entity on 1 April 1881). Towards the north west the governorate was bounded by the rivers Elbe and the Havel, and on the north east by the Oder . The south eastern boundary

6460-451: Was appointed as sole director of the observatory. The main focus of his work was now on stellar astrophysics. He was the first successfully to determine radial velocities of stars photographically and as a result he discovered the spectroscopic binaries . In 1899 one of the biggest refractor in the world, Great Refractor of Potsdam, with lenses of 80 and 50 cm, was manufactured by the firms of Steinheil and Repsold , and mounted in

6545-468: Was built from 1921 to 1924 at the instigation of Erwin Finlay-Freundlich . Though at that time it was not yet technically possible to measure the gravitational redshift, important developments in solar and plasma physics were started here and the architect, Erich Mendelsohn , created with this peculiarly expressionistic tower a unique scientific building. Besides the work of Schwarzschild, in

6630-543: Was complete. The first new instruments were delivered in the spring of 1914. The 65 cm refractor — the first big astronomical instrument manufactured by the famous enterprise of Carl Zeiss Jena — was mounted in 1915, whereas the completion of the 122 cm reflector telescope was delayed until 1924 by the First World War. Struve died in 1920 from an accident, and his successor was Paul Guthnick , who introduced in 1913 photoelectric photometry into astronomy as

6715-642: Was deemed worth keeping after an evaluation by the German Wissenschaftsrat . The name 'Blaue Liste' for a German model for funding science has been retired, and traces back to the color of a dossier. The Leibniz Association's headquarter is located in Berlin and there is an EU bureau in Brussels. Since 2014, the engineer Matthias Kleiner has been president of the Leibniz Association, with Christiane Neumann acting as secretary general. In 2020,

6800-770: Was dissolved on 31 December 1991. On the recommendation of the Science Council on 1 January 1992 the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, with a greatly reduced staff, was founded. It occupies the former Babelsberg Observatory site in Potsdam-Babelsberg . The Sonneberg Observatory and the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory are no longer affiliated with the AIP, but the AIP still operates the Observatory for Solar Rado Astronomy (OSRA) in Tremsdorf and maintains

6885-474: Was held on 9 June 2024, and the results were as follows: The Landtag Brandenburg , the parliament of the state of Brandenburg is in Potsdam. It has been housed in the Potsdam City Palace since 2014. Potsdam is twinned with: Potsdam, included in the fare zone "C" ( Tarifbereich C ) of Berlin 's public transport area and fare zones A and B of its own public transport area, is served by

6970-477: Was inaugurated in the Tautenburg Forest near Jena and the new Karl Schwarzschild Observatory was founded. The Schmidt variant of this telescope is to this day the largest astronomical wide-field camera in the world and it was the main observational instrument of the astronomers of the GDR. In 1969 the four East-German astronomical institutes, Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam, Babelsberg Observatory,

7055-588: Was probably founded after the 7th century as a settlement of the Hevelli tribe centred on a castle. It was first mentioned in a document in 993 as Poztupimi , when Emperor Otto III gifted the territory to the Quedlinburg Abbey , then led by his aunt Matilda . By 1317, it was mentioned as a small town. It gained its town charter in 1345. In 1573, it was still a small market town of 2,000 inhabitants. Potsdam lost nearly half of its population due to

7140-848: Was the scene of the Potsdam Conference from 17 July to 2 August 1945, at which the victorious Allied leaders Harry S. Truman , Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met to decide the future of Germany and postwar Europe in general. The conference ended with the Potsdam Agreement and the Potsdam Declaration . The government of East Germany (formally known as the German Democratic Republic (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik , DDR)) tried to remove symbols of "Prussian militarism ". Many historic buildings, some of them badly damaged in

7225-403: Was to the neighbouring governorate of Frankfurt (Oder). About 500,000 inhabitants lived in the Potsdam governorate, which covered an area of about 20,700 square kilometres (7,992 sq mi), divided into thirteen rural districts , partially named after their capitals: The traditional towns in the governorate were small, however, in the course of the industrial labour migration some reached

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