Georgetown University Astronomical Observatory
historical observatory on the campus of Georgetown University
The Georgetown University Astronomical Observatory (also the Heyden Observatory and Francis J. Heyden Observatory) was founded in 1841 by Father James Curley of the Department of Physics at Georgetown College. Father Curley chose a site on the college grounds, planned the building, and supervised its construction to its completion in 1844. Costs were initially paid by Rev. Thomas Meredith Jenkins, S.J., and Rev. Charles H. Stonestreet, S.J., who were Georgetown professors at the time. The observatory was used in 1846 to determine the latitude and longitude of Washington, D.C., which Curley determined to be latitude 38°54′26N and longitude 5h8m18.29s (west of Greenwich).
In 1850, Benedict Sestini used the Observatory to make a series of sunspot drawings, which were engraved and published (44 plates) as "Appendix A" of the Naval Observatory volume for 1847, printed in 1853. In 1888, Johann Georg Hagen was named director. He was responsible for the installation of the 12-inch equatorial telescope with which for twenty years he observed and gathered data on variable stars. This instrument is still in continuous use.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Georgetown University Astronomical Observatory” is historical observatory on the campus of Georgetown University. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Georgetown, University and Astronomical, not as a finished interpretation.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5547051. Authority coordinates are 38.908, -77.077. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1841, 1844, 1846 and 1850.
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This entry incorporates text from “Georgetown University Astronomical Observatory” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.