* Astronomy

Over the centuries many observations have been conducted from University grounds, windows and rooftops but the University has built three observatories in the past two-and-a-half centuries.  Only one survives, that on the roof of the Cromwell Tower of King's College. 
The first observatory was built by Marischal College at the Castlehill in the final quarter of the eighteenth century using funds raised by public subscription.  We still have two of the telescopes that furnished this observatory.   An account of the Castlehill Observatory appeared some years ago in the Journal for the History of Astronomy (Reid, 1982). 
Unfortunately before the end of the century the land at the Castlehill was requisitioned by the Government for military use and as a consequence a replacement observatory was erected on the roof of Marischal College in the late 1790s.
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Title: The Castlehill Observatory, Aberdeen.
Author: John S. Reid

Long since forgotten, the driving force behind the erection of the Castlehill Observatory at Aberdeen was Patrick Copland.

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Apart from St Ninian's Chapel (subsequently demolished), the interior of the fort at this time was empty, although an observatory had been built on the top of the SE bastion, and the NW corner appears to have been partly built upon.
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Professor Patrick Copland (1748 -1822) was a natural philosopher of national repute, whose connection with Marischal College spanned 60 years.
A son of the manse, Copland was born in Fintray, Aberdeenshire, and graduated AM from Marischal in 1766. He studied under an array of Aberdeen Enlightenment figures, including James Beattie, professor of moral philosophy and logic, and co-founder of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society.
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