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The Sydney Observatory is home to a working refracting lens telescope which has been in use for over 135 years.
It is the oldest working refracting lens telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. The observatory was built in 1858 with the main purpose of keeping the time ball (which still exists to this day) to help the city keep accurate time.
Now it is a museum of astronomy and pays homage to captain James Cook and his famed voyage following the transit of venus around the globe.
If you go at night you will be able to observe the night sky through both a modern telescope and the historic original telescope from 1874. If it's a cloudy night, visitors are invited to participate in a planetarium show in a very small planetarium instead. The planetarium show is an experience in itself.
You will still get to use the telescope on a cloudy evening if you'd like, of course, but instead of the planet Jupiter, the astronomers on hand have other fascinating tricks up their sleeve. These include training the telescope at a clock miles away from where you are standing, allowing you to read the time on its face as if you're standing right in front of it..
