Sydney Observatory

Perched on a hill above The Rocks, this nineteenth-century observatory once regulated the colony's time and provided navigational data for shipping. Its copper-domed tower still houses historic telescopes, and a time-ball drops daily as it did to signal one o'clock to ships in the harbour below. Now a museum of astronomy, it offers displays on the southern sky, indigenous star knowledge and the transit-of-Venus observations made here. Evening sessions let visitors view planets and stars through modern and heritage instruments.