[1] The listed building[2] is located on the Insulaner hill, a mountain of post-World War II rubble[1] in the Berlin quarter of Schöneberg in the district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg.

He was a student of Wilhelm Foerster and long-time director of the planetarium at Berlin Zoologischer Garten station and at the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin-Treptow.

After the rubble had been removed, the half-ruin could be equipped with a lecture room for about 40 people, an office with library, a workshop, a photo laboratory and two observing platforms.

In October 1949, the astronomical working group of the Archenhold Observatory and the astronomy courses of the Volkshochschule Tempelhof were moved to the Wilhelm Foerster Institute.

In January 1951, the damaged Bamberg-Refraktor in the destroyed Urania building in Invalidenstraße could be dismantled and moved to General-Pape-Straße.

Between 1967 and 1968, the 6-inch double refractor with Zeiss B objective was completely rebuilt (frequency-controlled drive, later conversion to stepper motors).

On November 9,  1973, the 75-cm mirror was unveiled on the occasion of a visit by Federal President Gustav Heinemann was officially inaugurated.

From 1973 to 1986, broadcast journalist and space expert Harro Zimmer served as a board member of the association.

He was one of its founding members and participated in the US Moonwatch program in a leading position in the observations of satellite orbits.

[7] The Berlin astronomer and university lecturer Fritz Hinderer held numerous practical courses for his students in the 1980s with the help of the association's technical facilities.

A cable fire destroyed the image processing equipment in the mirror dome of the observatory on August 18, 1996.

This is equipped with a Lyot filter (switchable between 0.5 and 0.7 Å bandwidth, manufactured by the company B. Halle Nachfolger in Berlin-Steglitz) for solar observation in the light of the hydrogen spectral line.

The association is publishing the magazine "Dem Himmel nahe" (translated "Close to Heaven") several times a year since 2018.

From guided tours for kindergartens and schools to observations of the sun and bright objects during the day and presentations of the current night sky to special thematic tours following the planetarium programs, the visitor is offered a wide range of instruments used and objects observed.