[Wavytone]

All... many of you aren't listening to the simple needs Geoff has clearly stated and are instead leaping to push specific solutions that don't fit the needs and constraints that apply, by a wide margin.

The observatory is a functioning MUSEUM and IMHO we should all be quite grateful the Powerhouse museum considers it appropriate to open the observatory to the public at night and equipped with a working telescope OF ANY SORT.

Which is a lot more than can be said at Greenwich in London - the damned beancounters slashed the budget there so heavily it has NO functioning telescope at all, and has been renamed a "museum of time". The permanent exhibits have been reduced to little more than Harrison's clocks, a pathetic 3 metre GOTO portable plastic planetarium in one room, another room running a powerpoint slide-show and a gift shop that flogs badly made indian replica junk. As one who remembers what the museum used to have, it was such a shock that I had to apologise to my wife, having dragged her out to see Greenwich in appalling bad weather.

The philistines demolished the Paris observatory long ago, just a stone pillar remains in a park, rather like what's left of Parramatta observatory...