Griffith Observatory

The Griffith Observatory was an Earth observatory building which operated during the 20th century. It was located in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, California and was funded by Chronowerx Industries, headed by Henry Starling. Among the astronomers who worked at the observatory was Rain Robinson. Rain Robinson and Henry Starling met at the Griffith restoration party.

In 1996, the Griffith Observatory participated in the SETI project and Henry Starling funded a SETI lab in the Observatory.

That year, the Griffith Observatory featured a museum with exhibits about Saturn, Mars, Halley's Comet and a planetarium show, which was hosted by Rain Robinson on Tuesday nights.

A monument was located in front of the main building which honored six Earth astronomers, namely Hipparchus, Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton and William Herschel. Robinson was working at the Observatory for the project when she discovered an unidentified flying object in orbit over Los Angeles. Defying orders from Starling, Robinson transmitted a SETI greeting from the Observatory to the object, which was actually a time-displaced USS Voyager. The crew of Voyager then used the greeting to track Robinson at the Observatory.

Robinson's laboratory was located in room 123. It was decorated with numerous B-movie posters and collectibles. It also featured a map of the Sol system and various computers, some made by Chronowerx Industries.

When Robinson surprised Tom Paris and Tuvok, who were sent to find out what she knew about the USS Voyager in orbit, in her lab, Paris excused themselves by telling her, they had been on the museum tour and "took a wrong turn at the Saturn exhibit". To get back from Rain's lab to the lobby, one had to "go right down the hall, take a left at Mars, right at Halley's Comet and then just keep going straight ahead past the soda machine". After she realized that Tuvok and Paris had wiped the hard drive of her computer, she followed them outside to the front of the building, where they had parked their car. There, they were attacked by H. Dunbar, Starling's assistant, who vaporized their Dodge Ram with a 29th century phaser while hiding behind the statue commemorating the astronomers. Paris, Tuvok and Robinson were able to flee in her van when Dunbar lost his weapon for a moment. 

The following day, they returned to the Observatory and used the radio dish again to send a message to the Voyager, like Robinson had done the day before. They modified the satellite dish transmitter und thus were able to carry and receive Voyager communication frequencies and contact Captain Janeway.