Neumünster Observatory is now part of the town hall

Neumunster. The decision at the Neumünster council meeting was unanimous: the adult education center (VHS) will be separated from the municipal subsidiary “Kiek in” on January 1, 2025 and integrated into the city administration. This is purely for organizational reasons, because the VHS will soon go bankrupt Guesthouse Kiek in and moves to the former Helene Lange School. Then the synergy effects with the guesthouse no longer exist.

This also means that the observatory of Neumunster legally moves into administration along with the VHS – along with some of the treasures astronomy. “The city employees have already inventoried all objects and distributed inventory numbers,” reports Marco Ludwig, head of the observatory.

Since 2019, a planet has been called “342000 Neumünster”.

In addition to the earthly possessions such as valuable telescopes, various furniture and documents, the city now also comes into possession of, among other things, a real piece of moon rock, an original signature of moon pioneer Neil Armstrong and even a planet: the small planet “Neumünster” is now also a inventory number in the town hall.

A small planet orbits the sun at a distance of 500 million kilometers has been officially called “342000 Neumünster” since 2019.. With a diameter of just over a kilometer, it is about the same size as the city center on Earth. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) gave it the name proposed by Marco Ludwig.

With the support of a professor and an Austrian planetary explorer, the coup was accomplished, which took much correspondence, an application and years of waiting. The IAU thus honored the astronomical educational work carried out at the Neumünster Observatory since 1969. Because the observatory scientifically monitors the planet on behalf of the city, it is now part of the inventory.

Also the staff of the Community College Next year he will transfer to the city council. Some VHS employees followed the discussion in the council meeting on Tuesday evening and were clearly happy with the decision in the visitors’ gallery.

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In Kiek in, however, the departure of the VHS is not greeted with joy and the future of the entire facility is not made any safer. FDP councilor Carsten Kaikowski also indicated this: “Today’s decision is nothing other than the start of the dismantling of the Kiek in. We are concerned about employment there and will continue to look closely at what the city council is doing.”

C.N