As a telescope lover, I always dreamed of going to visit observatories, using their telescopes, and viewing the sights of the night sky.
One dream is to visit the Palomar Observatory, seeing the Hale 200-inch telescope, and viewing space stellar items such as nebulas, The Milky Way’s outer ring, and viewing the planets in our solar system much closer.
I also like the idea of viewing the stars with the telescope in a swiveling dome structure that has roll back doors.
But eventually I learned of a great movement going on across the country, and the world for that matter. Private telescope owners have been hard at work building their own observatories for some time.
Home Observatory in West Colorado Springs
A few weeks ago, I was working on finding some local examples. I finally located a nearby example (at least for a Colorado Springs local like myself) on the city’s west side. Bryan Gibson is a former science teacher, and member of the Colorado Springs’ Astronomical Society (CSAS) and is a volunteer with the Space Foundation. He has been building one for the past few months on his property.
Bryan Gibson and his home Observatory
This has been an ambition of his for some time, especially given the circumstances leading up to it being built. His family had another home on the same property, until the infamous Waldo Canyon Fire of 2012 swept into his Mountain Shadows neighborhood near Garden of the Gods. “We only had 20 minutes to get my mother and a few key items out before the fire came” Bryan said. The house was among some of the first of 350 homes to be destroyed in the city. In a couple years, a new home was built on the same property, and Bryan began to construct his Observatory. “My wife Joan said I could do it as long as it matched the decor of the house versus the traditional ‘shed with dome’ look”, he said.
The Observatory up close
The telescope to be used will be around 20 feet above the surrounding foundation. Bryan says, “I have it set up where I can either run the telescope and dome directly or remotely from my house”. Remote operation makes more sense during the colder winter months.
Bryan bought the pre-owned white-retractable dome for the Observatory for less than 1/10 of what a new one would cost. The purpose of the dome is to protect the telescope from extreme elements and to dampen ambient light from the sides interfering with the telescope’s range of view. When I went inside the Observatory, I asked Bryan about insulation for the Observatory walls, and he said, “You need to keep the interior close to ambient temperature for better operation of the telescope and equipment”.
As for the equipment, Bryan will utilize this telescope in the observatory. It is a 127mm Tele Vue NP127IS refracting telescope.
Bryan showed me some images his friends took with their telescopes (not his 127-mm Refracting) but these pictures, according to him, are very similar to what his telescope can and has captured.
The smaller, black Celestron scope seen in here also is predominantly to help with centering. The telescope is also equipped with a Pictoral Imaging System on the back of the scope, part of the remote-operation strategy that he has for using the scope from inside his house. “There are times that I will go up in the Observatory to view the night sky, but it is very easy to run it from inside,” Bryan said.
Andromeda Galaxy taken from the Hubble Space Telescope
His strategy is not unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which has very high-resolution pictoral imaging systems and transmits these images routinely to Earth.
The Juno probe also utilizes similar pictoral imaging, such as seen here with Jupiter’s volcano moon Io casting a shadow on Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
Bryan is planning on going with a group of his fellow CSAS members to see next week’s Eclipse around Casper, WY. The last full Eclipse seen in the US was in 1979. Bryan said that to view the Eclipse, you need to be prepared. Greatest of these is proper eye protection. NASA has an article on Eclipse viewing safety that would be beneficial for those who are in the path of totality or near there.
Bryan is planning on having an open-house for the Observatory on September 5th (which I’ve been invited to). I look forward to seeing it fully completed and ready for use. Bryan said there are several others in his CSAS group that also have observatories. I plan on joining myself at some point, especially if I’m able to win a Celestron sweepstakes going on for a high-end telescope! But that of course depends if any Gimmick readers try for themselves! 🙂
For The Great Galactic Space Gimmick, I’m the Gimmick Commander Ben Faltinowski. 🙂
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