Observatories that I have visited:
Slottsskog's observatory at Gothenburg, Sweden

A visit to Slottsskog's observatory in Sweden

During a visit to Gothenburg we went to the big park Slottsskogen among other places. There you find an amateur observatory, Slottsskog's observatory.

Map over Slottsskogen:

You find the observatory at the Northern end of the park. It's in walking distance from the Gothenburg city center. There are trams also if you don't like walking.

Slottsskogen:

First we try to find the observatory. We came walking through Linnégatan (Linné street) to Linnéplatsen. Following the walk paths in de park and here we are staying at the Labyrinth. We see the far away hill where the observatory is, left to the water tower. We have walking all the day on the streets and this was too far away. We return back to the city and do another try later, then from another direction.

Second day, this day I had done a walking along the harbor area Westwards. Turning to South direction and walk through Stigberget to the street Bangatan. Here are the stairs up to the hill where the observatory is placed.

Many stairs to climb, it's hot today, fortunately stairs is in the shadow.

When I leave the stairs I have a plateau in front of me. Following the walk path according to the arrows I drew here.

When you find this pond you are very close to the observatory. It is nice up here on the hill so even if you are not interested in astronomy it is worth visiting.

Slottsskogsobservatoriet:

Here I have found the observatory building, not an old classic building with a dome as I thought.

A latin sentence "Per Aspera Ad Astra" on the portal, consulting my girlfriend. It means something like "Through hardships towards the stars"

Some letters on the building, I first thought it's the planets, but found it to be twelve signs. It must be the signs of the Zodiac, one for each month.

In June they have the observatory open for visitors on Saturday and Sunday. They do solar observations then. But I was in Gothenburg on working days and have to look at the observatory from outside.

Maybe not a classic observatory but the building is from 1929. It's not only an observatory, it has offices, workshop, resting room and an exhibition room. I got some comments about the building from the staff of the observatory. This building is from 1986 which replaced the one from 1929. More to read here: Slottsskogsobservatoriet.

It reminds me a bit of a prison with the building's bars and barbed wire. It has two sliding roofs to open up for the telescopes.

After have been visiting the observatory I took some other stairs down to the city. There are many places we want to visit in Gothenburg during these days. Here you can read more about our visit to Gothenburg, A visit to Gothenburg