Astronomical Observatories as Practical Space: The Case of Pulkowa

Abstract

Astronomical observatories are among the oldest of scientific institutions. By the end of the seventeenth century in Britain and France, national resources had been invested in the study of astronomy, resulting in two of the most famous observatories in the history of the subject: those at Greenwich and Paris.¹ For over a century these two institutions dominated developments in observational astronomy, but by the early nineteenth century they had been joined by similar, if sometimes smaller, observatories all over Europe. Astronomy by this time occupied a highly favoured place in the minds of many European natural scientists; the power of Newtonian and subsequently Laplacian and Lagrangian celestial mechanics to predict the positions of astronomical bodies and to explain much about the nature of solar system objects gave the discipline so firm a basis as a continuously testable, predictive study that it was regarded as a model science.² At the same time, the early decades of the nineteenth century witnessed important changes in the study of astronomy. The subject was being led in new directions, particularly by astronomers from the German states; individuals such as Friedrich Bessel, Wilhelm Olbers, C. F. Gauss, Johann Encke and Wilhelm Struve were rewriting the ground rules of astronomical practice, and they came to be deferred to as the leaders of the subject throughout the Continent. Their work constituted the acknowledged forefront of astronomical endeavour, and their methods of working were adopted throughout Europe and, subsequently, the United States and the European colonies.³