Leiden Observatory (Dutch: Sterrenwacht Leiden, pronounced [ˈsteːrə(n)ʋaxt ˈlei̯də(n)] ()) is a research institute for astronomy located in the city of Leiden, Netherlands. The observatory was founded in 1633 by Prince Frederik Hendrik, who donated his private collection of astronomical instruments to the university. The first director of the observatory was Christiaan Huygens, inventor of the pendulum clock and discoverer of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Today, the observatory houses over a thousand instruments, including one of the world’s largest reflecting telescopes with a mirror diameter of 6 meters (20 feet). The main research areas at Leiden Observatory are extragalactic astronomy and stellar astrophysics.
The roots of Dutch astronomy date back to 1575 when Gemma Frisius built the first astronomical instrument in the Netherlands, a small refracting telescope. In 1611 Johannes Kepler visited Amsterdam while on his way to meet Tycho Brahe in Prague; during his stay he met with Frisius and other Dutch astronomers who were using Keplerian techniques to observe comets. Around this time Jacob Metius also built several telescopes and made improvements to existing designs; his work influenced many future Dutch telescope builders including Christiaan Huygens.
In 1633 Prince Frederik Hendrik donated his personal collection of astronomical instruments to the University of Leiden on condition that they be used for public demonstrations and teaching purposes. This marks the official founding date of Leiden Observatory. Christiaan Huygens was appointed as its first director; he arrived in Leiden that same year with his apprentice Johannes de Raaijmakers van Nijmegen and began setting up the new facility. One of their first tasks was to grind and polish a 6 meter (20 foot) diameter metal mirror for use in a new reflector telescope; this massive undertaking took almost two years to complete but resulted in one of the largest telescopes in Europe at that time.
Over following centuries, dozens more large reflectors were built at Leiden Observatory by successive generations of Telescope Makers including Jan van der Heyden (who also invented street lighting), Adriaan Daniël Fokker (who pioneered X-ray optics), Franciscus Donders (known for inventing photometry), Willem Luiten Oosterhoff (discoverer of Oosterhoff groups I & II), Maarten Schmidt (first person to identify quasars) and George Smit Römer
Instrumentation:
One focus area for early astronomers at Leiden Observatory was comet hunting; several notable discoveries were made including periodic comet 9P/Tempel by Johann Heinrich von Mädler in 1831 and Encke’s Comet by Karl Ludwig Harding in 1786 – an object which remains one significant target today due partially due its short 3.3 year orbital period making it amenable to study using ground-based facilities such as those at Leiden Observatory . Other fields soon followed suit such as binary stars , exoplanets , solar system objects like asteroids , variable stars , novae & supernovae . To facilitate these studies numerous specialized instruments have been designed & constructed over time such as spectrographs , photometers & high-speed cameras . More recently attention has shifted towards developing instrumentation for space-based platforms like satellites & space telescopes ; examples include optical communication systems & fine guidance sensors . Even so ground-based astronomy remains an important part both scientifically & technologically speaking – e.g recent years have seen construction begin on ELT ‘s or extremely large telescopes which will have diameters 10 times larger than current state-of-the art facilities like ESO ’s VLT meaning they can collect far more light than any previous instrument allowing unprecedented levels detail to be observed across cosmic distances …