N 39.05° | W 78.74°
1840 ft EL

The old observatory in Virginia was dismantled in late 2017 and all the equipment packed and stored, awaiting completion of a new observatory building in WV. Things haven't exactly gone as planned and the new building is still on the drawing board.

The original plan was to erect the 12-1/2' Lancaster dome to replace the smaller 8' Exploradome from the old site, and that's still the plan, but now we are back to searching for a new site. If I don't find a good site this year I may just sell off everything and call it quits.
My EQ-8 has always been pier mounted and I don't have the tripod for it, and its too heavy to lug around anyway, so I amuse myself with binoculars for the present. I did pickup a Questar scope, and a pair of Canon image stabilizing binoculars, in a recent trade so I have a couple of new options for portable viewing. I sent the Questar back to the factory and had it cleaned and serviced, but I haven't used it yet. However the binoculars are really good at stabilizing whatever you're viewing. I also still have my old Celestron Ultima 8 and its tripod that I can fall back on for some higher magnification stargazing.
If and when we do get the dome completed, it will house my Orion HDX110 EQ-G (EQ-8) GEM mount and Celestron C-11 Schmidt Cassegrain telescope (SCT). Also an Astro-Tech AT6RC astrograph for imaging and, of course, another piggybacked guide scope with camera.

My imaging cameras are a modified Orion StarShoot Pro 6MP one-shot color camera and an 8.3MP QSI 683 mono camera with LRGB, Ha, SII and OIII filters. There is also a ZWO CMOS mono camera for autoguiding and possibly planetary imaging.
I have several other hobbies, not related to astronomy, that I also occupy myself with while waiting to build the dome, and I've created some pages relating to those.

The layout for the pages on this website are best viewed on a desktop. The mobile views usually look OK, but sometimes not so much. I've just learned to live with it, being it's a free website provider and all.
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The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork... Psalm 19:1

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(Last update to this page - 4/8/2021)