The Bonn observatory was founded by
Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander (1799–1875). His friendship with
Frederick William IV of Prussia facilitated the construction of the observatory in the years 1840 to 1844 by architect
Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Argelander is recognised in astronomy for his famous
Bonner Durchmusterung, which resulted in a star catalogue containing 325,000 stars. Astronomical observations were carried out from the old Bonn Observatory until the 1950s. However, the steady brightening of the night sky over the city by
light pollution (street lights, illumination of buildings) made observations more and more difficult. The then director of Bonn Observatory, Friedrich Becker, recognised the importance of finding a location sufficiently distant from any artificial lights on the one hand, but sufficiently close to the Bonn institute to ensure a close connection with students and staff at Bonn. An alternative site to Bonn itself was investigated in 1949 with the help of a botanist who worked in the Eifel area and was interested in astronomy. In a conversation with the then assistant astronomer Hans Schmidt, who later succeeded Becker, the top of the Hoher List mountain above the village of
Schalkenmehren was identified as a good site for astronomical observations. This rural environment featured a dark night sky, unaffected by artificial sky brightening. It was decided to erect the observatory there and transfer the telescopes from Bonn. In 1954 the new
Observatorium Hoher List was inaugurated, its first dome hosting a
Schmidt telescope with a 50 cm mirror. A major extension followed in 1964, prompting the transfer of the 1899
double refractor from Bonn to the Eifel. The last dome of the observatory was constructed in 1966, and a 1 m
Cassegrain telescope installed, which is now the largest and most modern telescope at Hoher List. Since its construction the observatory has been an outpost of Bonn Observatory (since 2006 the Observatory Department of the Argelander Institute for Astronomy of the
University of Bonn), where many students have obtained their diploma or doctoral degree, and where many important scientific projects in the field of
astrometry and
photometry of stars in our
Milky Way have been published. Eventually, the Observatory Hoher List lost its former scientific relevance, because scientific observations became more and more difficult in the Eifel region. The brightness of the night sky had increased, the weather conditions and quality of instruments were inferior to those of the excellent observing sites in
Chile or in the
United States. The observatory then served to support the practical part of student education and it provided a laboratory for the development of astronomical instrumentation that could be deployed on telescopes in e.g.
Spain or Chile. == Closure and continued use ==