Colonial Observatory

The Colonial Time Service Observatory once stood beside Wellington's Bolton Street Cemetery, New Zealand, keeping the country's official time by watching the stars, though the building itself no longer exists.

About Colonial Time Service Observatory

Built in 1869, the observatory replaced the earlier Provincial Observatory after that building's view was blocked by a new telegraph office. Its main task was determining an exact standard time for New Zealand by measuring the transit of stars across the sky.

History

The observatory was demolished in 1906 to make way for the burial of Prime Minister Richard Seddon at the site, and its timekeeping duties passed to the newly built Dominion Observatory in 1907.

Location & getting there

The site is on the edge of Wellington's Bolton Street Cemetery, now cared for by the Department of Conservation, in central Wellington, New Zealand.

Visiting the site

As the observatory building was demolished in 1906, there is nothing left to tour on-site; visitors can instead explore Bolton Street Memorial Park, the historic cemetery grounds that now occupy the area.

See your named star from here

The Colonial Time Service Observatory once measured the stars' passage overhead to the second. Today, if you've named a star, you can find its exact coordinates any time in our star catalogue, wherever in Wellington you happen to be looking up.