DARLING OBSERVATORY

Latitude 43.186 by Longitude -89.220

Elevation 300 Meters

After years of hauling the telescopes out of the home our the garage and going through the process of alignment and leveling. I decided to build a permanent home for my 12.5 f5 Cave Newtonian Reflector. This was my first structure attempted so I decided to build a simple enclosure with a gate, and to secure the telescope from the weather I placed a tarp over it. The construction time for this project was two weekends and several days of painting the wood. 

I decided to attempt make the observatory enclosure a work of art and painted the mural on the south wall. I also posted a scripture from the Holy Bible giving reference to magnificence of the Heavens and giving credit where it belongs.

Displayed below is the Cave 12.5 f5 Newtonian reflector. I believe this was one of the last built by the company since I had to fight over 6 months to get it shipped to me before the company disappeared. This telescope is my primary visual telescope and use it mainly for examining the Moon for Lunar Transient Phenomena and to view the planets such as Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Observatory 2 was built to house my new Meade LX200 8" Cassegrain. The building was a great deal more complicated than the fence enclosure and consisted of a roll off roof. The roof uses six four inch wheels running along fabricated track that runs the length of the two 4X4 timbers mounted on the top of the building. The individual working beside the building is my son-in-law Dan Horan who effort made the completion of this dream a reality. Also my three sons Jason, Nathaniel, and Micah were also a great help with the construction.

Since I was making a significant investment in the second building and the new Meade LX200 8" Cassegrain, it was decide to remove the tree in front of my house to clear the southwest region of the sky for the two telescope.

Shown below is the finished product complete with rubber roof glued on over a plywood placed on home made trusses. The roll off roof is quite heavy and would take four people to lift onto the track so I decided to construct the roof in place on top of the building. To insure that high winds do not take off with the roof, I have installed two load binders which fasten between two lengths of chain and when lock down hold the roof firmly onto the track.

Below stands the proud owner of the Meade LX200 8" Cassegrain telescope. This is one of the new Go To telescopes and its allowed me to rekindle my passion for astronomy by finding the deep sky wonders that I looked at during my younger days. Being older now and having certain physical limitation to my body, I can now view these objects with out subjecting my body to horrible contortions.

The Meade LX200 also has an excellent camera system that comes with it called the L.P.I. or lunar planetary imager. This device when plug into a lap top computer takes some pretty impressive images and is an excellent tool for searching the Moon for lunar transient phenomena.

Due to the extensive tree line and homes located to my west I am unable to conduct any observations of the crescent Moon. I remedied this problem by using the Orion 5" refractor  or AstroView 120ST EQ Rich-Field Refractor, which is highly portable and an excellent platform for taking photographs. The clock drive runs off four D size batteries. The picture shows the telescope set up for viewing of the Sun.