Lamont’s seed: Georg von Neumayer’s interest in magnetism, meteorology and astronomy

From 1835 Johann von Lamont (1805-1879) was director of the observatory at the village of Bogenhausen, north-east of Munich (today part of Munich). He was a scholar with varied interests and the ability to achieve something excellent with sparse funding. Although he started his astronomical research with a brand new Fraunhofer refractor, he mostly had to work with older instruments until his death in 1879. For instance, he used a Reichenbach meridian circle not only to determine the positions of more than 37,500 stars but also to determine the exact time at noon. He also was involved in the project of the European arc measurement. However, his main interest changed to magnetic measurements and subsequently his observatory became one of the first magnetic stations of Europe.