page_title: Mannheim Observatory
section_title: From the Napoleonic Wars to the German Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: Mannheim Observatory / The Baden Period / From the Napoleonic Wars to the German Revolution
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Mauerquadrant von Bird, ca. 1770 English: Mural Quadrant by Bird c. 1770
context_page_description: The Mannheim Observatory was a tower observatory built between 1772 and 1774 in Mannheim, Germany, which remained in operation until 1880. The observatory was transferred to Karlsruhe and finally in 1898, was established on the Königstuhl near Heidelberg where today's successor institution the State Observatory Heidelberg-Königstuhl is located.
  The observatory tower is now owned by the city and was restored in 1905–1906, and after the Second World War. Since 1958, the tower houses studio flats.
context_section_description: After the 1806 war over the Grand Duchy of Baden's claims to areas of the Palatinate and thus the observatory, the Court Astronomer, Roger Barry, recommenced his observations, but fell ill in 1810 and the observatory remained unused until his death in 1813. His numerous observations with the Mural Quadrant made after 1800 remained unpublished by his successors, as they were not classified.
  The running of the Mannheim Observatory by Catholic Orders was now over. In the years up to the Baden Revolution in 1848 the observatory declined. Famous astronomers were not retained, such as Heinrich Christian Schumacher (Director 1813–1815), founder of the oldest existing journal of astronomy, Astronomische Nachrichten, and of the Altona Observatory. Friedrich Wilhelm Struve, founder and first director of Pulkovo Observatory at St. Petersburg, despite being interested was deterred by clumsy personnel policy.  From 1816 until his death in 1846 Bernhard Nicolai was Court Astronomer, being mainly dedicated to the orbits of comets. In his time, amongst other things, a three-stage refracting telescope was purchased from Fraunhofer, which was later used by the German expeditions of 1874 and 1882 to observe the Transit of Venus.
  The instruments and the Observatory Tower itself were aging. Already mature plans for construction of a new observatory drawn up in the revolutionary period were no longer to be, and on 10 June 1850 it was decided to end the Institute by appointing no new Court Astronomer. In 1852 the Heidelberg professor Nell took over the unpaid supervision of the institute. In 1859 this modest institute planned renewal with the purchase of a six-stage telescope.
caption: A 1775 John Bird Mural Quadrant was for many years the main instrument of the Mannheim Observatory
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