The main observatory will be 16' x 16' with a 16' x 8' control room connected. The roof will cover both the main observatory room as well as the control room. The control room will have a secondary slightly angled roof that will be located within the main roof. This will keep us warm in the winter and protected from mosquitoes in the summer. The entire roof, all 24' x 16' will slide open to reveal the night sky to the two telescopes that will reside within.
Two permanent steel piers will hold both mine and Trent's telescopes. We will no longer have to go through the tedious process of setting up, polar aligning and tearing down each night. This will allow us to be much more productive in capturing the splendors of the universe on both film and CCD.
As more progress is made I will post photos and details of the project on the new Observatory page.
We have dubed the new Astronomy venture, "Big Cigar Astronomy". A new website dedicated to this pursuit will be forthcoming.
Stay Tuned!
To better enjoy the images you should have your monitor adjusted so that it displays all the possible shades of gray in a balanced way. The image below shows various shades of gray, ranging from pure black to pure white. There are small tick marks at the bottom, showing the point where each shade begins and ends. Adjust your monitor's brightness and contrast controls until you can see every shade of gray between the black and white extremes.
