OBSERVATOIRE ROYAL DE BELGIQUE

The history of the Royal Observatory of Belgium begins in 1826 when Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (1796-1874), a renowned scientist, proposed its construction in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, in the northeast suburbs of Brussels. Once built, the scientific building houses precision clocks and astrometry equipment to record the positions of stars and observe certain astronomical phenomena. In the middle of the 19th century, the scientific work carried out within the observatory evolved and diversified (meteorology, geography and geodesy). It was not until 1883 that the current observatory was built, this time on the Uccle site south of the city centre. At the end of the decade, the various measuring and observation instruments were transferred. At the beginning of the 20th century, the observatory acquired specialized study structures for seismology, exact time calculation and sky mapping. In 1913, the Meteorology Department officially became the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium. From 1925, and under the influence of the important development of astrophysics, new instruments were added to the ensemble and replaced the older ones. During the Second World War, several telescopes were destroyed and replaced by larger diameter equipment. In 1964, the Belgian Institute of Space Aeronomy was created. In the 1970s, as is the case for other prestigious continental European observatories, projects to pool research in the field of astronomy through the establishment of large observatories in the southern hemisphere, Chile in the lead with the ESO (European Southern Observatory), forced the restructuring and decentralization of the work carried out by Belgian astronomers. Today, the Royal Observatory of Belgium remains a leading scientific research institution, covering a wide range of fields, from the study of the solar system to the study of the very distant Universe, as well as in-depth work on the characteristics of the Earth. As we can see, this observatory, which is as rich in history as it is in the quality of the studies carried out within it, deserves to be studied more closely... Unfortunately, this establishment is above all private and can only be visited during open days, which must be watched on the website! Visitors passing through the park are only allowed to browse over the gates that protect its park, from the circular avenue, to admire its buildings and domes in the distance. A heartbreak!