In 1815 Heinrich Christian Schumacher initiated a large-scale geodetic survey of Jutland, stretching from Skagen to Lauenberg.

To connect the Danish measurements with the greater European geodetic network, Schumacher involved Carl Friedrich Gauss, who in 1818 began his own survey of the Kingdom of Hanover.

[2] In the garden plot behind it, which fell steeply towards the Elbe river and allowed a wide view of the area, he erected the Altona Observatory to house the necessary fundamental station.

The royal administration agreed to provide the observatory with an annual budget, under the condition that Schumacher would live and work in Altona until his death.

This issue appeared with all railways as travel distances and speeds increased, eventually leading to the convening of the International Meridian Conference in October 1884 in Washington, D. C., which agreed to adopt a universal day for astronomical purposes, leading to the world being split into time zones independent of precise astronomical time.

[4] During the First Schleswig War, the home of Schumacher, who was a royalist Danish official, was surrounded by soldiers and he was placed under house arrest.

Petersen notably lacked any foreign language skills and struggled to deal with the upkeep of the Astronomische Nachrichten journal, which published material from all over Europe.

In 1854 Christian August Friedrich Peters, who had previous experience working at the Hamburg, Pulkovo, and Königsberg observatories, was appointed as the new director.