16 ASTRONOMY • MAY 2020STRANGE UNIVERSE
In some alternate universes, astronomy is
free. But around here, perusing these pages
filled with tempting gadgets and gleaming
telescopes, many of us have expensive dreams.
I’m familiar with the drooling-craving syndrome.
For me, it started with airplanes. During my three post-
college years in Asia, some of my Peace Corps friends
discovered cheap lessons at government-
run f light schools. Count me in! In 1985,
I finished my training in the U.S., but
what do you do after you’ve obtained a
pilot’s license? Everyone’s biggest aspira-
tion is to own a plane.
It seemed a pipe dream for this writer,
married to a kindergarten teacher. But, it
t u r ned out , good u sed fou r-se aters a re not
crazy expensive, and the next three
decades were peppered with fairy-tale
aerial adventures.
The parallels to our astronomy passion
are obvious. A private observatory may
seem impossibly opulent and utterly
unworkable for urbanites. Nonetheless, many stub-
bornly harbor the dream of owning one.
As someone who has traveled that road and managed
to make every possible mistake in the process, let me
share some hard-won lessons.
First is the issue of “where?” You might think a city
would be out of the question. But I watched a physician
in light-polluted Kingston, New York, construct a dome
on his Victorian rooftop. And, as Dudley Observatoryin the Albany, New York, metro area and Matt Francis’
Prescott Observatory south of that city in Arizona show,
an imperfect sky is no reason to forgo such a project.
True, this eliminates most deep-space objects.
However, the endless realm of double stars, as well as
Moon and planet explorations, can keep you and your
visitors enthralled forever. Those crowd-pleasers are
immune to light pollution.
Of course, when galaxies and nebulae are important,
you must have a dark site. If, like me, you already live far
out in the boonies, your home environment might be
perfect. Otherwise, if you can commute, buy some land
in the middle of nowhere, where real estate is inexpen-
sive. Solar panels and battery storage can preclude the
need to spend a fortune erecting poles to connect to the
grid. Don’t close until you’ve spent a night camping there.
If one sky-direction must be blocked, sacrifice the north.
Next decision: type and size. I built a big roll-off roof
observatory in the mid-’80s. No one helped me, and I
made major mistakes. I put the roof on swiveling casters.
Don’t do that. I had to jack it up and replace everything.
I also thought the roof ’s wheels would roll on the wooden
wall tops. Wrong again. When parked, the heavily loaded
casters created depressions and wouldn’t readily climb
out of them. I jacked everything up again and topped the
walls with thin steel plates. It was harder than it sounds.
I also learned that everything needs to be periodically
greased. And that a reversible half-horsepower DC motor
was best for moving the enormous weight. And to use
chains, not cables. Also, the 12-by-20-foot (3.7 by 6 meters)
building was excessive. Do yourself a favor and go smaller.
Then, last year, having moved to even
darker skies and now significantly less
poor, I gladly paid Explora-Dome to install
a n 8 -foot (2 .4 m) motor i z ed dome on t hei r
square building. Everything all together
— the dome, building, and labor — totaled
under $10K. Another few thousand cov-
ered the masonry foundation and pier, and
the end result was my big f/6 equatorial
ref lector in one observatory (the roll-off )
and apochromatic refractor in the dome.
Shuttling back and forth from a dome
to a roll-off provides a great A/B compari-
son. Yes, a dome looks cool. But a roll-off
exposes the entire sky, letting occupants
stargaze or use binoculars while waiting their turn at the
scope. You can’t do that in a dome.
The bottom line is: Don’t ever abandon your observa-
tory dream.
I’ve skipped the part about how snakes like to nest
in them.Don’t give up on your backyard astronomy dreams.
Observatory
odds and ends
The author’s new
observatory in
upstate New York, as
seen from his kitchen
window. The rural
landscape is free of
lights and houses. But
there’s no cell service
or mail delivery,
either. BOB BERMANA private
observatory may
seem utterly
unworkable for
urbanites.
Nonetheless,
many stubbornly
dream of
owning one.BY BOB BERMAN
Join me and Pulse
of the Planet’s
Jim Metzner
in my podcast,
Astounding Universe,
at http://www.astounding
universe.comBROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE
AT http://www.Astronomy.com/Berman