The New Morning Star Observatory

This page documents the construction of my new observatory in West Virginia. This project has been on hold for several years but should finally be getting off the ground in 2018 now that we've finally found a location in West Virginia with dark, open views of the night sky. The site is between 1800 - 1900 feet in elevation and approximately 35 miles as the crow flies from the closest light dome at Winchester, VA and the I-81 corrider.

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At present I am leaning towards constructing a round, metal-sided building for the 12.5' diameter Lancaster dome. Since I plan to automate the observatory the computer room/work area could be in a separate building, but I'm still considering adding a control room extension off the round building.

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I have dark skies and wide open views at the new location but it looks like there is still one nemesis to deal with. On the right is a shot of a Sunday morning sky at the new location. I'm over 60 miles flying distance west of Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. and look at all those contrails heading west. I suppose I must be right under a flight path out of Dulles. I think this is just the morning "rush hour" of departures as I haven't noticed many jets late at night, but I'm still thankful that image processing can remove jet trails during stacking. I think I may need it.

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Last update 11/27/2017