I've been dreaming of building a backyard observatory since I got hooked on astronomy as kid. I remember dreaming of building a dome and putting it in the backyard of my parents house. Building it was way beyond my capabilities at the time of course, but here I am almost 30 years later and I'm just now feeling confident enough to embark on a similar project.
When I bought my current home 5 years ago, one of the things which attracted me to it was that there is a large open area to the side of the house with space and clear enough horizons for an observatory. In addition, my house backs on to ranch land, so there are no houses on two sides of me which means I get beautiful views of the Kohalas and it helps keep the skies dark and the horizons clear.
While almost no residential areas are ideal for an observatory, my house is not too bad for it. I live in a rural area without a lot of light pollution and while there is a street light at the edge of my property, I think I can live with it. The skies are still much darker than many other places.
My plan is to document the observatory build here on this blog. I'm not sure how long the whole process will take, but I want a record of it and I'm hoping that making this public will motivate me to push through any challenges on the project.
I'll make several posts here documenting some of my planning process and then (hopefully) move on to discussing the actual build. Next up will be discussing the local weather and how that will affect my plans.
To see all articles in this series, look at articles listed under the Observatory Build tag.