After having gone through extensive and costly renovation, and then almost being engulfed by a park fire, the Observatory was again ""newly"" opened to the public. Very much like the Getty when it opened, you have to make reservations to visit the Observatory these days. You park at the Los Angeles Zoo and they shuttle you to the top of the hill. (Your reservation is actually for the shuttle...not for admission to the shows.) The mosaics in the rotunda are stunningly beautiful now that they've been restored/cleaned, and it's still fun to watch the pendulum knock down the pegs. Of course, the newest and most impressive of the renovations is the planetarium. Where once we watched cool laserium shows in extremely uncomfortable wooden chairs, we now watch versions of the sky on a newly construction dome ceiling with an amazingly impressive new Zeiss projector. Anyone who knows cameras/binoculars or any type of implement that uses high quality focal glass knows the name Zeiss. Even though the parking situation is a little cumbersome right now...it's totally worth sitting back in a plush seat staring at a night sky you can see no other place.
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