Zweibrücken Observatory

Zweibrücken Observatory (Volkssternwarte Zweibrücken), or the Zweibrück Observatory of the Natural Science Association, is a public observatory in Zweibrücken, Germany. Its dome was painted to resemble the Star Wars character R2-D2 in 2018.

Construction
The observatory is located on a hill in the Zweibrücken campus of the University of Applied Sciences, Kaiserslautern. In 1999, the Zweibrücken scientific association was founded, with plans to construct an observatory. In 2002 the 4.57 m diameter dome was erected. The construction was an initiative of Professor Peter Pokrowsky.

The dome houses a Celestron C14 optical telescope, with a diameter of 14 in, as well as a Coronado SolarMax solar telescope with a diameter of 4 cm and a focal length of 40 cm.

R2-D2
In September 2018, the telescope dome was painted to resemble the R2-D2 robot from Star Wars by a team led by Hubert Zitt. It was the second observatory dome to be painted in such a way, following from Goodsell Observatory in 2010. The repainting took 120 man-hours. It gained internet fame after a post on Twitter by Star Wars actor Mark Hamill.