Credit: Saeed Salimpour - Ballarat Observatory

138th Year

18th-26th May

Discover the amazing and delightful observatory and our collection of instruments, books and space endeavour models.

Safe viewing of the Sun after the tour if clear in the afternoon.

Special viewing through heritage telescopes if clear in the evening.
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

Wheelchair access to the Baker Hall, Brittain House and also Restroom facilities, and the custom-built Federation – Adcock Telescope, the first public telescope for wheelchair access in Australia.

2.00pm – Tour

2.40pm – Afternoon Tea and experience our Camera Obscura if clear

3.00pm – The Amazing Effie Baker – about Effie’s works and travels – video 32 min.  Euphemia Eleanor (Effie) Baker (1880-1968), photographer and Bahá’í, was born on 25 March 1880 at Goldsborough, Victoria, eldest of eleven children of Victorian-born parents John Baker, miner, and his wife Margaret, née Smith. In 1886 Effie was sent to live with her grandparents at Ballarat Observatory. Her grandfather Henry Evans Baker (d.1890) imbued in her a lifelong fascination with scientific instruments, an aptitude for creativity and a sense of inquiry. Having attended Mount Pleasant State School and Grenville College, she studied at Ballarat East School of Art and received a grounding in colour and composition from P. M. Carew-Smyth at the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery’s school.

Observatory collection- Euphemia Baker with colleagues observing the partial eclipse of the Sun in 1910 or total eclipse of the Sun in 1916.

6.00pm – Viewing at the Telescopes

8.00pm – Supper

 Bookings 

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