Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory

The Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory holds a historical photographic plate collection with celestial photographs dating back to the 1880s

The collection comprises a total of around 25,000 large-format glass plates, predominantly negatives. Maximilian Wolf (1863-1932) took the first photographs at the private observatory in Märzgasse in 1867. The glass plates have now been digitized, and the scans are available through the GAVO database (German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory) at the Astronomical Calculation Institute in Heidelberg. Certain historical images, especially the comet photograph, still provide valuable data for research today.