The City Observatory

The City Observatory on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh will be opened to the public on 24th and 25th September.

When the time-ball was set up on the Nelson Monument in 1853, the observatory’s master clock made by Reid & Auld of Edinburgh was adapted to automatically send a time signal to the time-ball.

The clock supplied the time to the time-ball and the clock which fired the One o' Clock Gun until 1896, when the signal was sent from the master clock at the Royal Observatory on the Blackford Hill.

Volunteers from the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh will be on hand to show visitors the transit telescope manufactured by Fraunhofer & Repsold of Hamburg which was used by the observatory's astronomer to calculate the time at midday.

The public will also be able to see the 'Politician's Clock' which the townspeople and mariners used to set their clocks and chronometers until the time-ball was set up on the Nelson Monument.