ROYAL GREENWICH OBSERVATORY

astronomical observatory and, until its closure in 1998, the oldest scientific institution in Great Britain. It was founded for navigational purposes in 1675 by King Charles II of England at Greenwich. Its primary contributions were in practical astronomynavigation, timekeeping, determination of star positions, and almanac publication. In 1767 the observatory began publishing The Nautical Almanac, which established the longitude of Greenwich as a baseline for time calculations. The almanac's popularity among navigators led in part to the adoption in 1884 of the Greenwich meridian as the Earth's prime meridian (0 longitude) and the starting point for the international time zones. The observatory was gradually transferred from Greenwich to Herstmonceux in Sussex from 1948 to 1957, in a search for clearer skies, and it was moved to the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge in 1990. A controversial cost-cutting measure, announced by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in 1997, brought about the shutdown of the observatory in October 1998. The institution's equipment and operations, including the William Herschel Telescope and other instruments located on La Palma in the Canary Islands, were consolidated under the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, headquartered at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. Some historic instruments and resources at Cambridge were returned to the Old Royal Observatory, which was renamed the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The old observatory is open to the public and is administered by the nearby National Maritime Museum.