The Goethe Link Observatory is an astronomical observatory near Brooklyn, Indiana (USA), owned by Indiana University and operated by the Indiana Astronomical Society. It is named in honour of Dr. Goethe Link, an Indianapolis surgeon, who built it with his private funds. Construction of the observatory started in 1937, and the telescope was first operated in 1939. Link donated the observatory to Indiana University in 1948.
A number of asteroid discoveries were made there, including 1578 Kirkwood. These are credited by the Minor Planet Center under the name "Indiana University," which operated the Indiana Asteroid Program at Goethe Link from 1949 until 1967 using a 10-inch (250 mm) f/6.5 Cooke triplet astrograph. The asteroid 1728 Goethe Link was discovered there on October 12, 1964.
When light pollution began to degrade the Goethe Link Observatory's capabilities in the 1960s, Indiana University built a new facility in the Morgan–Monroe State Forest officially designated as the Morgan–Monroe Station (MMS) of the Goethe Link Observatories.
Famous quotes containing the words goethe, link and/or observatory:
“Only that type of story deserves to be called moral that shows us that one has the power within oneself to act, out of the conviction that there is something better, even against one’s own inclination.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“This sand seemed to us the connecting link between land and water. It was a kind of water on which you could walk, and you could see the ripple-marks on its surface, produced by the winds, precisely like those at the bottom of a brook or lake. We had read that Mussulmans are permitted by the Koran to perform their ablutions in sand when they cannot get water, a necessary indulgence in Arabia, and we now understand the propriety of this provision.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)