On September the 13th the annual “Open Heritage Day“ takes place all over Germany. The opening ceremony for Potsdam will be held in the dome of the Great Refractor at 10 AM with a welcome by the Lord Mayor of Potsdam, Jann Jakobs. The “Förderverein Großer Refractor“ will act as host and offer guided tours and presentations for visitors throughout the day.

The University of Potsdam, Faculty of Science, and the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) invite applications in a joint appointment for a W 2-Professorship for Computational Cosmology.

Three students from Israel, all winners of the „Young Scientist Contest“ sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung - BMBF), visited AIP on 6 August.

Matthias Winker is appointed as new administrative chairman at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). Together with the scientific chairman and speaker of the Board, Prof. Dr. Matthias Steinmetz, Winker completes the Executive Board of the institute.

A team led by Andrea Kunder from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) measured the velocity of a sample of 100 old RR Lyrae stars* thought to reside in the Galactic bulge, the central group of stars found in most Galaxies.

By using the best available data to monitor galactic traffic in our neighborhood, Noam Libeskind from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and his collaborators have built a detailed map of how nearby galaxies move.

The Getty Foundation announces a second series of grants for exemplary 20th century buildings as part of its Keeping It Modern initiative. The Einstein Tower receives one of the fourteen grants totaling over $1.75 Million awarded for the conservation of modern architecture around the world.

On June 19 2015 our dear colleague Emil Popow passed away. Over a period of more than 40 years, Emil Popow took part in the life of the AIP and made fundamental contributions to the development of the technical section.

We are filled with sadness by the news of the death of our former colleague Marie-Luise Strohbusch.

In the first week of June 2015 the 592. WE-Hereaus Seminar in Bad Honnef brings together representatives from the extensive ground-based surveys, spacecraft missions CoRoT, Kepler and future Plato-2, as well as galaxy formation and stellar evolution experts to set a roadmap for future endeavors in the field of spectroscopic surveys, asteroseismology and chemodynamical models.

The International Scientific Committee (known internationally by its initials in Spanish) "CCI" held its 73rd meeting at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Potsdam, Germany in May 2015. The meeting was sponsored and held on behalf of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), in collaboration with Hamburger Sternwarte and Dr. Remeis-Sternwarte Bamberg, is digitizing an archive of astronomical photographic plates as a means to preserve cultural heritage. These photographic plates contain observations spanning nearly 100 years.

The "Wilhelm-Foerster-Preis 2015" is awarded to Matthias Steinmetz, scientific chairman of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and director of the research area Extragalactic Astrophysics. It is annualy granted by the Urania Potsdam.

A systematic analysis of all observations performed so far by the X-ray satellite XMM-Newton resulted in the worlds most comprehensive catalogue of X-ray detected celestial objects. It was compiled and published by a science consortium, the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre, the AIP being one of its members.

The Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument (PEPSI) has received its first celestial light through the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). Astronomers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam showed the instruments incredible capabilities at different wavelengths and resolving powers.

An international team of astrophysicists, led by Cristina Chiappini from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, has discovered a group of red giant stars for which the ‘chemical clock’ does not work: according to their chemical signature, these stars should be old. Instead, they appear to be young when their ages are inferred using asteroseismology.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research will fund the Centre for Innovation Competence innoFSPEC for another five years. Federal Minister Johanna Wanka praises the scientific expertise.

The European radio interferometer LOFAR succeeded in taking unique pictures of the solar eclipse on March 20th as it is not possible by eye.

Funded by Wilhelm und Else Heraeus-Stiftung.