Collections and museums

The Dr. Karl Remeis Observatory is home to a collection of astronomical telescopes and measuring instruments from the 19th and early 20th century, including two Utzschneider and Fraunhofer
telescopes, meteorites, printing plates from early observatories, one of the oldest Schmidt cameras and more than 30,000 glass photo plates from selected regions of the northern and southern sky.

Der Aromagarten beherbergt über 100 Pflanzenarten mit duftenden Inhaltsstoffen.

The Scented Garden (Aromagarten) is home to more than 100 scented plant species.
The Botanical Garden contains nearly 5,000 different plants from various different regions, from the Arctic tundra to the tropical rain forest. The historic collections in the Botanical Garden are used for research and teaching.

The Ethnological Collection is part of the Institute of Geography. It was given to the Five Continents Museum in Munich as a permanent loan in 1996. It comprises objects from the Congo region, the Malay Archipelago, Borneo and Brazil collected by Erlangen-based zoologists and geographers during their travels in the late 19th century.

The Geological Collection is, in essence, based on the chamber of art and wonders (Kunst- und Wunderkammer) that belonged to Margrave Friedrich of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. It contains numerous artefacts of historical significance, including original versions of academic works from the 18th century and pieces testifying to Franconian archaeological sites which have since been forgotten or are no longer accessible.

The collection provides a nearly complete overview of the medicines known around 1800. It is named after its creator Ernst Wilhelm Martius, who used to be the court and university pharmacist. He compiled a collection of natural raw materials used in medicine from all over the world in Erlangen.

The Mathematical Models Collection comprises approx. 180 objects, including mathematical string, plaster and plastic models. The majority of the collection was re-discovered in 2012 when the Institute of Mathematics moved to a new location. The objects were in different places. The oldest objects might even have originally belonged to Felix Klein (1849–1925), who had his first professorship at FAU.

The collection began with the palaeontological objects from the chamber of art and wonders (Kunst- und Wunderkammer) that belonged to Margrave Friedrich of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. Since then, the collection has been expanded considerably by donations and objects from University excavations, and by including reference materials used for Diplom and doctoral theses. The collection focuses on fossil material from southern Germany, including objects from historic sites which can no longer be accessed today.

The zoological museum on Universitätsstraße was closed in 1985. The objects from the museum are currently housed in the Naturkundehaus at Nuremberg zoo and include an internationally renowned collection of Franconian birds. At the moment, only the part of the Zoological Collection at Biologikum which is used for teaching purposes can be visited.