He worked there with the Dutch astronomer Joan Voûte at the Bosscha Observatory near Lembang and started a survey of Cepheid variable stars.
In 1929 he moved to the University of Greifswald in northern Germany, where he finished his habilitation on Cepheid variable stars in 1935.
The already existing observatory at the Hainberg, south east of Göttingen, provided the best location within the surrounding area.
The interest of the military in the effect of the Sun on short wave radio communication made it possible to build this observatory during the war.
[1][2] A personal antipathy between ten Bruggencate and Karl-Otto Kiepenheuer, who also worked for some time at the Göttingen University Observatory, led to a division of the German solar observations.
Ten Bruggencate established a second solar observatory in Switzerland where the weather conditions were more favorable compared to the often cloudy skies over Germany.