Established in April, 1926.

Since then its main research tasks have been:

- studies of the Earth rotation and associated geodynamic phenomena with the methods of space geodesy and optical astrometry;

- studies of the Earth crust dynamics and gravitation force through geodesic and geophysical observations;

- geophysical investigations towards earthquake prediction;

- studies of space sources of decameter radio waves.

Its principal achievements and developments are:

In 1926-1938, the Observatory did a lot of work on gravimetric mapping of the territory of Ukraine. A gravimetric map of Ukraine, useful in mineral exploration, was made by determining the gravity acceleration in more than 500 points. A number of gravity anomalies were discovered, where geologists later found oil-and-gas deposits.

The Observatory obtained major scientific results in its studies of the Earth tides. Due to the data collected over nearly 60 years by observing tidal variations of the gravitation force, tilts of the Earth surface and linear strains in more than 40 points of Ukraine, the parameters that describe the reaction of the Earth on the gravitational effect of the Moon and the Sun were determined.

On the basis of long-term observations of the Earth surface dynamics, the nature of changes in the vertial movements of the Earth surface related to hydrometeorological factors and mechanical structure of soil has been determined; a technique to predict seasonal vertical movements of the surface cover solely by precipitation data has been developed.

In 1939 the Observatory started astronomical studies of the Earth rotation via latitude observations. From 1953 to 1961 it hosted the Central Bureau of Soviet Latitude Service. Important theoretical studies of latitude and pole oscillations were carried out at the period; they produced a significant impact on research into that subject, done by domestic and foreign specialists.

URAN-2 radio telescope started its operation in 1992. It is a part of NAS grid of inter-ferometers, rated as the National Asset of Ukraine, and is the second in the world decamet-ric device in terms of sensitivity. Here, in collaboration with NAS Institute of Radio Astronomy, H. V. Karpenko Physico-Mechanical Institute and foreign observatories, studies of fine angular spatial structure and spectra of cosmic radio sources, sporadic Jovian and solar radiation have been carried out, with polarization characteristics being determined; the radiation of pulsars and other space sources has been investigated as well.