27 September 2025 (10:00 - 17:00)
28 September 2025 (10:00 - 17:55)
As well as being an historic site, The Royal Observatory Edinburgh is a working observatory which houses nearly 140 staff and students. It encompasses two organisations: The UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) which includes the Higgs Centre for Innovation and the Institute for Astronomy (IfA). The UK ATC is part of UK Research and Innovation, and the IfA is part of the University of Edinburgh.
Engineers at the UK ATC design extremely sensitive cameras and other instruments for many of the world’s best telescopes and for the big telescopes of the future. They are also finding innovative ways of using this technological expertise in fields outside of astronomy, including earth observation and medicine.
The research of scientists at the IfA tackles many of the big questions in astronomy, including the search for life-bearing planets and studying the oldest and most distant objects in our universe.
Last entry to site at 3.45pm. Online booking via this link: http://bit.ly/ROE_Events

Activities
Activities across the weekend include:

Some of our buildings have accessible toilets in them. Please ask at welcome desk for accessibility map.
Some of our buildings are wheelchair accessible. Please ask at welcome desk for accessibility map.
Some of our buildings are only reachable by stairs or steep slopes which are not appropriate for wheelchairs. Please ask at welcome desk for step-free map.
A limited number of locations have no step-free access. Please ask at welcome desk for step-free map.
Small number of accessible parking spaces. Extremely limited parking by the observatory and we ask those who can use public transport instead to do so.
Activities throughout the site will be suitable for children though some areas may have recommended minimum ages.

Address
Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ