The observatory has been used to perform professional astronomy research, such as orbit determination of small Solar System bodies in the early 1900s and supernova surveys in the 1980s and 1990s.

[5] In 1965, the observatory was relocated a short distance east of the Berkeley campus in the hills of Lafayette, California, on the 283-acre (1.15 km2) Russell Reservation.

The dome was cut in half and moved from Berkeley to the observatory, located on a hill overlooking the to the golf course next to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

[12] Both optical telescopes are also outfitted with control systems which allow them be automated, meaning observations are made with minimal human intervention.

[14] Research at the Students' Observatory under A. O. Leuschner was primarily focused on performing astrometry in order to determine orbits for newly discovered comets.

[15] When Clyde Tombaugh reported the discovery of Pluto in 1930, Leuschner began observing it using the instruments at Students' Observatory to determine its orbit.

This mass meant Pluto was insufficiently massive to be the Planet X thought to cause discrepancies between the predicted and observed orbit of Neptune.

[1] Both were used as testing grounds for automated searches at other sites, with BAIT eventually being succeeded by the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope located at Lick Observatory.

In late March 1994, two high school students in Oil City, Pennsylvania, requested observations of the Whirlpool Galaxy.

When astronomers discovered SN 1994I in the Whirlpool Galaxy a few days later, they realized that the observations made with the 30-inch (76 cm) telescope at Leuschner had captured the earliest images of the supernova.

"[22] Leuschner Observatory is also home to an optical SETI experiment, carried out under the direction of UC Berkeley astronomer Dan Werthimer.

The program consists of a targeted search for bright pulses of short duration around 2500 nearby stars using the automated 30-inch (76 cm) telescope.

A graduate student at Berkeley used the 30-inch (76 cm) telescope at Leuschner Observatory to make the first identification of the two objects as being elliptical galaxies.