Latitude: 37.27 N, Longitude: 93.12 W

Strafford, Mo USAEstablished May 2003Richard Harris Owner/Operator

Ozark Hills Observatory

The Dream..

The Ozark Hills Observatory was founded in the backyard of our previous residence being built by myself and of my own design in 2003.

The original observatory, housed 6 different telescopes

during it’s time in service ( almost 2 years).

I learned many things about the workings of a dome when I built the first observatory. What I like, didn’t like – and what I’d like to have in the future.

I found an ad on the Internet for a used Technical Innovations Home Dome 6’ model and I bought it. We were very excited!

The old dome had to go! We sold it to an individual in Kansas City.

A new day..The new observatory arrives!

Installed and ready for a session

The OHO equipment quicklist

• 10” LX200 GPS model with UHTC

• Televue 80mm APO

• Starlight express Mx7c color CCD imager

• Canon 10D camera for wider field imaging

• Digital Dome works dome automation

Moving on…

We decided to build a new house in the Spring of 2006. My wife and I came to the agreement that an observatory on the 3rd level of the new house was a great idea! But the problem was cost and how it was going to look on the house. In addition there were obvious questions I had:

• Roof temperature viewing• Damping time for telescope • View of the sky from the roof

We went for it!

After talking with many people over the Internet and locally, as well as calling up Technical Innovations and getting their advice, We felt that putting an observatory on the roof of the new house was going to be worth the effort. I ordered the roof mount kit from Technical Innovations and dis-assembled the observatory for a retro-fit onto the roof.

The tear-down begins

Doctor, is this normal?

Only these pieces along with the new roof conversion kit are used

Ready for transport..

Pre-fit of the Technical Innovations roof-mount kit

Building the roof ring base in the observatory

Flange installation

The roof flange

Looking South-East The flange and dome base install is complete – roof is 12/12 pitch

Dome install complete

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(Trees to be cut)

Observatory covered with CedarRear house view

Front house view, the observatory isn’t seen but is located here

To access the observatory, there is a cat-walk on the 3rd floor which leads to the room

For more information about the observatory and it’s construction along with updated photos and more (including the inside) go to:

http://oho.scopetrader.com/