Excursion

Telegraph hill, Postdam

The Saturday afternoon excursion will allow you to visit the “Telegraph hill” hosting the historical buildings of the Astrophysical Observatory of Potsdam, founded in 1874. With the advent of spec- troscopy, it was the first observatory addressing physical questions of celestial bodies, such as their composition and physical processes they imply, in contrast to positional astronomy and celestial mechanics.

The observatory includes the Einstein Tower, a still operational solar telescope housed in an impressionistic structure of 1920s. The hill hosts several scientific institutes as well as a replica of the optical telegraph that gave the hill its name.