In contrast to his predecessor, Klinkerfues, Schur was very successful in modernizing the inadequate equipment of the observatory, acquiring a new, large Repsold heliometer in 1888.

He also, with the help of an assistant, catalogued and organised over 11,000 books and brochures in the observatory's library over a period of a year and a half, finishing in 1899.

Following Schur's death, Karl Schwarzschild assumed the position in 1901 and was succeeded first by Johannes Franz Hartmann and then by Hans Kienle, Paul ten Bruggencate, Hans-Heinrich Voigt, Rudolf Kippenhahn, Klaus Fricke, Klaus Beuermann, and finally Stefan Dreizler.

[2] To improve observations, a new observatory was planned on the Hainberg, a small hill south east of Göttingen.

[5] It was closed in 1984 and the equipment was transferred to the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, Spain,[6] where the University of Göttingen now shares the operation of several solar telescopes.