The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh

Astronomy has been taught in Edinburgh since 1583, and the Observatory moved from the Playfair building on Calton Hill to the top of Blackford Hill in 1896. The first Astronomer Royal for Scotland had been appointed in 1834 and he had a house built for him inside the new Observatory.

The 1970s and 80s saw the ROE take responsibility for the creation and operation of the UK Schmidt Telescope in Australia, the UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, again in Hawaii. The ROE was truly "the observatory on which the sun never sets". But in the 1990's the decision was taken to make the overseas posts independent. In the same review, the Royal Greenwich Observatory was closed, and the instrument building capabilities of the UK were focused here in the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre.