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The Melbourne Observatory once housed the largest telescope in the world, The Great Melbourne Telescope. The Melbourne Observatory opened in 1863 with the purpose of establishing correct Melbourne time. Once time was able to be acertained accurately the role of the Melbourne Observatory moved on to even grander projects, such as mapping the southern sky.

In 1887 the Melbourne Observatory joined an international project to make a photographic record of the whole sky – then an estimated 40 million stars. This was arguably one of the world’s largest projects to be undertaken by 19th century scientists. See this article for more history.