Opening Times
Open daily, except Monday. Evening viewing nights are available throughout the winter months.
Monday closed - open public holidays 10am - 5pm Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 2pm - 5pm
Thursday night viewings - last Thursday in October to last Thursday in March 7.30pm - 9pm
The Coats Observatory is situated in Oakshaw Street, Paisley. It was designed by Glasgow architect John Honeyman. The funding was granted from a local thread manufacturer called Thomas Coats.
John Honeyman's design incorporated impressive features of Victorian architecture, including stained glass windows featuring Galileo, William Herschel and Kepler. There is also wrought iron work from the Saracen Foundry in Glasgow and carvings by John Young.
The building opened on October 1st 1883 is one of four public observatories operating in the UK. They are all located in Scotland. The first telescope was a five inch refractor built by Thomas Cooke of York. An additional ten inch refracting telescope manufactured by Howard Grubb was purchased in 1889. The telescope is still in use at the observatory today.
A pavilion was added to house seismic recording equipment in 1901. The pavilion was unfortunately demolished in 1930. The observatory still serves as a seismic monitoring station for British Geological Survey.
