Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory, 100 De Sellum Avenue, Gaithersburg, Montgomery County, MD

Significance: Research on the dynamics of rotating bodies conducted by the Swiss mathematician Leohardt Euler, ca. 1770, first suggested that the solid body of the earth might wobble slightly on its axis of rotation, with a period of about 10 month. Astronomers attempted to detect such a wobble for more than a century, without success. Then, in 1885, observations conducted independently by the American geodesist, actuary, and astronomer, Seth Carlo Chandler, Jr., working at Harvard Observatory, and a German astronomer, Friedrich Kustner, working at the Berlin Observatory, detected apparent variations in the latitudes on the two observatories that could best be explained as the long sought after polar motion...
Survey number: HAER MD-78
Building/structure dates: 1899 Initial Construction