The City Observatory was an astronomical observatory on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is also known as the Calton Hill Observatory.
The site is enclosed by a boundary wall with a monument to John Playfair, president of the Edinburgh Astronomical Institution, in the southeast corner. The oldest part is the Gothic Tower in the southwest corner, facing Princes Street and Edinburgh Castle. It is also known as Observatory House, the Old Observatory, or after its designer James Craig House. The central building with the appearance of a Greek temple is the Playfair Building, named after the building's designer William Henry Playfair. This houses the 6-inch (15 cm) refractor in its dome and the 6.4-inch (16 cm) transit telescope in its eastern wing. The largest dome of the site is the City Dome in the northeast corner. During the early 20th century this contained a 22-inch (56 cm) refractor. In 2018, the entire site was restored and new buildings were added. The City Observatory site was opened freely to the public for the first time on 24 November 2018 as Collective, a centre for contemporary art.
History
Thomas Short's observatory
In 1776 Thomas Short returned to Edinburgh, bringing with him a 12-foot (3.7 m, focal length) reflecting telescope made by his late brother James Short. He intended to open a public observatory on Calton Hill as a commercial enterprise. However, in 1736 Colin Maclaurin, professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, had collected funds for a university observatory. Due to the Porteous Riots and the Jacobite rising of 1745 the funds were left unused. These were made available to build Short's observatory; and the City of Edinburgh provided a plot of land on Calton Hill. The observatory was to be open to university students.
James Craig designed the observatory, which, under Robert Adam's influence, was to look like a fortification with a wall and Gothic towers at its corners. The city controlled the building project, but the money ran out after only the first of the towers was built. Short moved into this as residence and ran the observatory until his death in 1788. An actual observatory, smaller than originally planned, was also built where the Playfair Building is now. After Short's death the observatory was kept going by his family for a while, then leased to opticians and finally abandoned around 1807. The site reverted to the city.
Short's daughter Maria Theresa Short was to return to Edinburgh in 1827. She ran a second – a popular and commercial rather than scientific – observatory elsewhere on Calton Hill. In 1850 this was removed and she moved to Castle Hill, where her enterprise eventually became today's Camera Obscura on the Royal Mile.
The Royal Observatory
In 1812 the observatory was handed over to the Edinburgh Astronomical Institution, which opened its popular observatory in the Gothic Tower. In 1818 work began on the Playfair Building. Designed by William Henry Playfair this was to become the scientific observatory of the Institution. Following a loyal address to George IV in 1822 this became the Royal Observatory. Again the funds proved insufficient, so that the purchase of instruments and the employment of an observer depended on funding from the Government. After much delay the instrumentation was completed in 1831 with delivery of the transit telescope. Fraunhofer had made the lens, but after his death it fell to Repsold – and after his death to Repsold's son – to complete and install the instrument.
In 1834 Thomas Henderson took up the position of observer. This was now the post of Astronomer Royal for Scotland and Regius Professor of Astronomy in the University of Edinburgh. Until his death in 1844 he worked on Calton Hill. In 1839 he published his results regarding the distance of alpha Centauri based on observations he had made 1832/33 at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. In 1846 Charles Piazzi Smyth became second Astronomer Royal for Scotland and set about reducing and publishing the backlog of Henderson's observations. In 1847 the Astronomical Institution – having run out of money – handed the Royal Observatory over to the Government.
According to the English journalist William Jerdan, naturalist and oceanographer Edward Forbes, F.R.S. and his "The Red Lions", a dining club for younger members of the British Association, (named after the tavern where the first meeting was held), had occasion to run up to the observatory of Calton Hill for astronomical studies.