Chabot Space and Science Center, Space observatory and planetarium in Oakland hills, United States

Chabot Space and Science Center is an observatory, planetarium and museum located in the Oakland hills of California. The facility houses several observation domes with telescopes of different sizes, along with exhibition halls containing meteorites, space equipment and interactive displays.

The institution began in 1883 as the Oakland Observatory, founded through a gift from Anthony Chabot, the father of hydraulic mining, to the City of Oakland. It moved to Mountain Boulevard in 1915 because of growing light pollution and urban congestion. In 1989 a joint powers agency was formed, and the new 86,000-square-foot center opened on Skyline Boulevard on August 19, 2000.

The center is named after Anthony Chabot, the father of hydraulic mining who funded the original Oakland Observatory in 1883. Teen volunteers from local schools work as explainers on the museum floor and on outreach trips. The three telescopes carry the names Leah, Rachel and Nellie, and the Zeiss Universarium projector shows up to 9,000 astronomical objects.

The facility sits in the wooded hills east of downtown and can be reached via winding mountain roads. Visitors should plan at least two to three hours for a complete tour of exhibits, planetarium show and telescope viewing.

The facility houses one of the oldest operating refractor telescopes on the West Coast, observing the sky for over a century. A special transit telescope is used to make precise time measurements for the entire Bay Area.