It was founded in 1922, making it one of the oldest such clubs in the country, and with some 1500 members it claims to be one of the largest amateur astronomy organisations in the southern hemisphere.

It owns a suburban property which is used as the Lodge and Observatory / workshop, and it also runs the Leon Mow (/ˈliːɒn ˈmaʊ/) Dark Sky Site, located north of Melbourne.

"[15] The telescope was upgraded by adding photographic equipment in 1872,[14] moved to Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra in 1946, and rebuilt with a modern mirror in the late 1950s.

It was badly damaged in the 2003 Canberra bushfires – the temperatures were so high that the aluminium dome itself caught fire and melted onto the telescope, the Pyrex mirror shattered, and steel struts sagged.

The project will incorporate bringing the telescope's optical, mechanical and electrical systems into line with current best practice.

Computer models were developed to design the supporting frame under a variety of extraordinary load conditions including wind and earthquake.

[17] The Radio Astronomy section started in 1980 and it has been steadily evolving into an active group of people interested in detecting that part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is invisible to the human eye.