the meridian circle and 600 taler for the chronometer. The refractor was the last great telescope from Fraunhofer, that was still available in München. At the same time, Humboldt received from the king the authority for the storage of associated documents in the Kultusministerium (cultural ministry) . The Fraunhofer refractor arrived in Berlin on 3 March 1829. Today it is in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. On 7 April 1829, five days before the departure of Humboldt on his Russian expedition, he received a royal commission for the new observatory project planned by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and its construction at the desired location. After his return, on 1 May 1830, Humboldt requested Schinkel by letter for a design. On 10 August 1830, the purchase of a building plot for the new observatory was authorized. The tower of the old observatory served as Telegraphenstation 1 between 1832 and 1849, one of the 62 stations of the Prussian optical telegraph from Berlin via Köln to Koblenz. On 3 July 1903 the tower was torn down. The entire area of the Marstall complex between Dorotheenstraße and Unter den Linden was taken over in 1914 by the Berlin State Library. New Berlin Observatory The construction of the new Berlin Observatory proceeded from a cabinet order of 10 November 1830 according to the design of Schinkel. An approximately one hectare plot was acquired at a price of 15,000 Thalers in the present-day area of Berlin-Kreuzberg. The foundation stone was laid on 22 October 1832 and the observatory was ready by 1835, on the area currently bounded by the streets ″Friedrichstraße″, ″Besselstraße″ and ″Lindenstraße″. The southern end of the ″Charlottenstraße″ was later named ″Enckeplatz″ in honor of the director at that time and the observatory acquired the address of Enckeplatz 3 A (now: ″Enckestraße 11″). The two-storey building was a plastered building "in simple Hellenic style" as a link between the modern and antique. The building laid out in cruciform plan-form and extended to the east with its longest arm. At the meeting point of the arms of the cross a rotating iron dome was placed with a diameter of 7.5 metres. It was the first observatory dome in Prussia in the form of a hemisphere with a slit opening and rotation mechanism. The foundations of the actual observatory were separate from the other buildings, to avoid transmission of vibrations. Under the dome was