Welcome to the Homepage of The Windy Mountain Observatory

After retiring from the military in 2003 and moving to southern Arizona, the dark skies here renewed my interest in astronomy. After a few months of lugging around all of my scopes and associated computer equipment, I decided it was time to build my own observatory to house my hobby. So I stood back, looked at what I had available to me and said “Now what?”

I researched the Internet and came upon a site that was a compilation of personal observatories, hosted by Bill Arnett. Being rather mechanically inclined, this was all I needed to get started, since here at my fingertips was a virtual library of design ideas. Surely this was going to be a snap and I would have my observatory up and running in no time. I decided that a roll-off roof design would be best suited for my available space.

This website will attempt to present my effort at constructing an observatory that would be up to the high standards of other observatories in the Huachuca Astronomy Club, which is my local group of amateur astronomers here in southeast Arizona. Considering some of the local astronomical talent here, I felt it was my duty to create something that would be up to par with my associates. With limited space, it would have to be a bit smaller than others, but the final 14 x 10 structure works well, housing the main scope room and a quite cozy separate control room.

Now I would be just plain wrong it I didn’t mention that there was a Windy Mountain Observatory 1.0. This was built on the fly from a shed kit obtained from a local discount lumber and home improvement store. After making the proper modifications to the designs I was provided, I had the building up and running with only about five weekends of work. The main thing I learned from this experience was that you should never construct an observatory from a shed kit obtained from a local discount lumber and home improvement store. The wood was full of knots and still quite green. This structure lasted all of about nine months before it was torn down and replaced by the current 2.0 version.

Since 28 April 2009, you are visitor