Stop gazing at the stars and actually seeing them by visiting this site, home for LA’s Griffith Observatory, a city-owned and run planetarium and observatory. GriffithObs.
org is a nicely designed site, and a very useful one too, as you can use it to find out about lots of details and tips to help you plan your visit, like best times to drop by, driving directions, and also highlights of ongoing and upcoming special shows. If you are a teacher and will be visiting with your class, it could be a good idea to prepare the outing with some of the material available at the site covering of course astronomy, and also history of the Observatory, its telescopes and its directors. I was very happy to read about the role of the Observatory as a stimulus for academic research; you’ll find this information under Boeing/Griffith Writing Contest, and also the details on topics and format researchers have to abide by. The website for the Griffith Observatory even carries a very comprehensive guide to local amateur astronomy associations and a modest link library, though definitely worth checking out. And that’s one of the truly most enjoyable bits about the site: since it is clear it must cater for a huge audience with very diverse ages and levels of astronomy savvy, writing it in a style that is interesting and engaging for all the points in the spectrum is definitely something they have accomplished. 
