Czech stargazers: Why does Czechia have so many observatories?

This week’s solar eclipse and the Perseid meteor shower once again drew Czechs outside to look at the sky. They also highlighted something unusual about the country: Czechia has one of the densest networks of public observatories and planetariums in Central Europe. Its roots stretch from the astronomers of Rudolf II’s Prague through the rise of amateur astronomy and communist-era “people’s observatories” to today’s European space programme.