Excerpt:
Introduction: This page will document the construction of my backyard observatory. This is a project I had wanted to do since the summer of 1975. A variety of factors (mainly cash flow and a suitable location) caused the 30+ year delay in starting this project. I live in a place where (for southern New England anyway) the skies are reasonably dark and I expect to be here long enough to make construction of an observatory a worthwhile undertaking. The photos below will document the progress of observatory construction.
The observatory I built is a
roll-off roof type observatory, I decided on dimensions of 8x12. I did
not have a set of plans, I kind of just "made things up as I went" (but
I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do after doing some basic
research and looking at other designs). My budget for this project was
around $2500, so that means I am doing nearly all the labor myself. I
did purchase most of the construction materials right after the Katrina
disaster, mainly to beat the significant increases in material prices
caused by this and other storms. Plywood went from $25 a sheet to $31 a
sheet in 4 days (I had to make multiple trips on multiple days due to
the capacity limitations of my truck).
More information on this frankly amazing project and the stunning results here.