The Kapteyn Astronomical Institute is the department of astronomy of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
The institute is named after its founder, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, who lived from 1851 to 1922.
Jacobus Kapteyn was appointed professor of astronomy and theoretical mechanics in 1878 at a time when no astronomical tradition, let alone an observatory, existed in Groningen.
From 1965 until 1995, an observatory —also named after Kapteyn— (Dutch: Kapteyn Sterrenwacht) was operated near the town of Roden, some 20 km Southwest of Groningen.
[1] The research pursued by the institute's astronomers includes asteroids, planetary formation, stars, galaxies and cosmology.