Can understand the low rating. I feel the place has changed since the early days and people reviewing it lowly is because nowadays you get to see and learn A LOT of stuff. There is a requirement to have your phone in flight mode when visiting - interested, but it's not really enforced or reminded again upon parking. You can also see the huge Lovell Telescope from the parking lot so if that's all you want to see you can just take a photo and save the entry fee ;) However, there's more!

Honestly you can book ahead because ever since COVID there have been timed entries but I totally missed my slot and the nice lady at the booth just let us in anyway - I don't think the observatory gets enough visitor's to have you miss out and worst case maybe you need to wait a bit until the mass tourist bus (which don't come here) are gone. The person in front didn't have a slot booked and just bought it on the fly.

Exciting three locations you must visit can be found here.

Short walk from the booth you will find a large, dark museum as seen in my pictures. Reading all this, playing around with gadgets, dressing up as a spy (no kidding) will take you 30 minutes minimum. If you aren't interested in any then I am not sure why you came here because like I said you can see the large telescope from the parking lot and then you don't need to pay entrance for the rest. There is also a video room with frequent cycles so try to schedule that in, too.

Hey, I know you are probably itching to get to the telescope as well, you could technically just go there first and do the museum later but I think it makes more sense to visit the path the museum recommends.

I think when you get to the telescope it's going to awe you. Yes you are slightly in better position than the parking lot here although in my case the telescope was facing away from the crowd so I consider myself unlucky. You can walk around 180° on the left side which has a kinda forgotten seating area which will give you another viewpoint to consider. There are many sign posts in the area and some other gadget to experiment with. However, there's more! There are guides doing schedule talks in the tent next to the telescope. Again you need to check what time that happens and I suggest you join this. It's all included in the ticket price anyway. There is also a two-section learning center that will teach you (mostly kids but still plenty to learn as an adult unless you are physics major/nerd) lots of about science in general, not so much about the telescope in itself. It's definitely popular with the kids. Oh and there is a cafe and gift shop of course, fancy that. To sum this all up this can easily be a half-day trip. If you are open to learn and explore everything it's going to be 3 hours.

Right, I haven't yet talked about the telescope and observatory. Everything you want to know can be learned from the museum. It's got a huge and important history as well as impact on development of further telescopes (among other things) in history. If you thought just coming for looking at the telescope was going to be it then you missed over half what is to offer. You can marvel at it but in the end just looking at it isn't going to enough to really understand its glory.

Ending on some notes, I wonder if there is a way to know when the telescope moves in order to see it in action or if one just has to be lucky when visiting.

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Can I write a review without any ranting or offending people, not even by accident? Well, it happened because the staff are super friendly from the entrance booth to the guides in the tents and even a caretaker that randomly walked by as I was going the viewpoint area in the back of the telescope. Don't forget to try and find the Cheshire Cat that's hiding on top of the telescope! 

 

 

 

Awww that's was a joke ;)

Though you must have noticed the cat hiding in the review? (in case you are lost, the observatory is in Cheshire county which is the name the Alice in Wonderland character Cheshire Cat is named after) I was thinking of hiding it better but I think only maybe 1 person will ever have noticed it and maybe not understand the connection to the observatory...