Museum Represents a museum WC Yes EventsForChildren No Place The town or city Edinburgh HearingLoop No IsIncludedThisYear Yes DisabledAccess No Activities Tours of the City Observatory, including the Cooke telescope in the McEwan Dome upstairs, which is normally closed to the public. 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00. Tours will last around 30 minutes and there is no need to book - just drop in. OpeningTime1 10:00 - 17:00 OpeningDate1 28/9/2019 OpeningDate2 29/9/2019 OpeningTime2 10:00 - 17:00 IsNewThisYear Yes ID Google Panorama ID 18826 Refreshments No Street The street address 38 Calton Hill Postcode EH7 5AA Parking No DisabledWC Yes LimitedAccess Yes NotAccessible No Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Collective, City Observatory, Calton Hill Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived edinburgh Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1555 Type The nature or genre of the resource Museum Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. current,55.86362,-4.261207; Description An account of the resource The iconic City Observatory on Calton Hill, designed by William Playfair in 1818, was restored and re-opened in 2018 as part of Collective, a new centre for contemporary art. Calton Hill was the birthplace of astronomy and time-keeping in Edinburgh and the City Observatory houses two telescopes, a Fraunhofer-Repsold transit telescope (1831) and, upstairs in the McEwan Dome, a 6 inch astronomical observatory refracting telescope, made by T Cooke, York, in 1896 and not ordinarily open to the public.GLOBAL CONNECTIONSCelestial observations made at the City Observatory were used to track accurate time. By providing a timekeeping service which eventually led to the One O Clock time-ball on the nearby Nelson Monument, the Observatory directly contributed to the global expansion of trade and empire through Scotland’s maritime fleet. By setting their ship’s chronometers accurately, sailors were for the first time able to accurately plot their position at sea. ACTIVITIESTours of the City Observatory, including the Cooke telescope in the McEwan Dome upstairs, which is normally closed to the public. 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00. Tours will last around 30 minutes and there is no need to book - just drop in.