Abstract
Abstract. The Munich–Maisach–Fürstenfeldbruck Geomagnetic Observatory is one of the observatories with the longest recordings of the geomagnetic field. It started with hourly measurements on 1 August 1840. The founder of the observatory in Munich was Johann von Lamont (1805–1879), the Director of the Royal Bavarian Astronomical Observatory. He had been stimulated to build his own observatory by the initiative of the Göttingen Magnetic Union founded in 1834 by Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855). Before 1840 fewer than five observatories existed; the most prominent ones were those in London and Paris. At the beginning Lamont used equipment delivered by Gauss in Göttingen, but soon started to build instruments of his own design. Among them was a nonmagnetic theodolite which allowed precise geomagnetic measurements to be made also in the field. During the 1850s Lamont carried out geomagnetic surveys and produced geomagnetic maps for Germany and many other European countries. At the end of the nineteenth century accurate geomagnetic measurements in Munich became more and more disturbed by the magnetic stray fields from electric tramways and industry. During this period the quality of the data suffered and the measurements had to be interrupted several times. After a provisional solution in Maisach, a village 25 km west of Munich, a final solution could be found in the vicinity of the nearby city of Fürstenfeldbruck. Here the measurements started again on 1 January 1939. Since the 1980s the observatory has been part of INTERMAGNET, an organization providing almost real-time geomagnetic data of the highest quality.
Highlights
Geophysical observatories are part of an international network for the acquisition of geophysical data and the surveillance of system Earth
This paper presents the history of the Munich–Maisach– Fürstenfeldbruck Geomagnetic Observatory, founded in 1840 in Bogenhausen at the site of the Astronomical Observatory of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences on the initiative of Johann (John) Lamont (1805– 1879), director of this institution
A similar effect had been found by Edward Sabine (1788–1883) in the data of the observatory in Toronto in Canada. Neither connected this observation to the 11 year periodicity of sunspots. It was the astronomer Rudolf Wolf (1816–1893), Director of the Swiss Astronomical Observatory in Zürich, who stated on 10 May 1852: “The temporal variations of the magnetic needle measuring the declination have the same periodicity as sun spots”
Summary
During the first half of the nineteenth century more geomagnetic observatories were set up in many countries, mostly for scientific purposes and for a better understanding of the general features of the geomagnetic field and its temporal and regional variations. Later, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, other earth science disciplines started their own networks of stations for the observation and monitoring of other phenomena, most importantly earthquakes, meteorology, oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and glaciology. From 1923 onwards, occasional geomagnetic observatory work with absolute measurements of the field began near Maisach, a village about 25 km west of Munich. After 1931, these observations were extended to include temporal variations of the field This site in turn had to be abandoned because of plans for an enlargement of a nearby small airport for military purposes. The Munich–Maisach–Fürstenfeldbruck observatory is one of the world’s oldest geomagnetic observatories and belongs to a small group of stations for which the recording time of the geomagnetic field exceeds 175 years
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