The astronomical Museum of the Paris Observatory – the Amateur Observatory acting, the atmosphere here is strict. But a trained person will know and will see a lot of interesting.

Paris Observatory is the oldest existing in Europe, even Greenwich a few years younger. When Louis XIV created in 1666, the Royal Academy of Sciences, at the first meeting it was decided to ask the monarch on the establishment of the Observatory. June 21, 1667, at the summer solstice, academics-mathematics identified on the purchased for the Observatory site the exact direction of the Paris Meridian and the contours of the building. Designed and built by the architect Claude Perrault, brother of the storyteller Charles Perrault. The name of the architect is now called the Central building of the Observatory.

At different times, the Observatory was headed by prominent astronomers. Since 1994 through the streets of Paris along the line of the Paris Meridian runs a chain of bronze medallions with the words Arago. It is a monument to one of the Directors of the Observatory, a prominent astronomer Francois Arago, whose life is like an adventure novel. Young scientist instructed to measure an arc of the Meridian in Spain, which at that time rebelled against Napoleon. Arago was arrested, was in jail, then fell into slavery to the Algerian dey, was a translator from the corsairs – and still made it to France, saving the measurement results. At 23, he was elected to the Academy. In Paris was a monument to Arago, who disappeared during the occupation. The French did not become him to recover and put in overhead 135 bronze medallions, each day reminding Parisians about the scientific feat of their compatriots.

In the building of the Observatory through the halls of the second floor is the line of copper denoting the Paris Meridian. In the nineteenth century, the Observatory has established three telescopes, which are now shown to tourists. Also in the Museum you can see the masterpieces of the instrumental collections that were used by the scientists of earlier centuries.

To get here on a tour easy: the Observatory takes on the provisional application is only available for groups of 20-30 people. But the level of the two-hour tour will be higher – it will hold the real researchers.