Ógyalla Observatory

Another attraction of Ógyalla, located 14 kilometers from Komárom, is the observatory. In the 19th century, one of the owners of the settlement, which was inhabited by Slovaks and Hungarians, was the Konkoly-Thege family, which had converted to the Reformed faith. One of their members, Miklós KonkolyThege (1842–1916), who was already born in Pest, was an astronomer and meteorologist who established the first rural observatory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Ógyalla in 1900. Konkoly-Thege studied physics with Ányos Jedlik (1800–1895), and then became acquainted with astronomy in Berlin. He became the director of the Hungarian Royal Central Institute of Meteorology and Geomagnetism (the legal predecessor of today's National Meteorological Service), established in 1890, and he organized the nationwide dissemination of weather forecasts. In 1899, he donated the Ógyalla estate and the observatory to the Hungarian state, and his weapons collection enriches the holdings of the Danube Riverside Museum in Komárom.