Over-The-Hill Observatory
Builder/Owner: Rich Lohman, Woodacre, CA
“Take a breath and enjoy receiving trillions of atoms of oxygen—most of them the gifts of an exploding Star.” Rick Hanson, Ph, D. neuropsychologist/author of "Buddha’s Brain"
Over-The-Hill Observatory is a home-built observatory containing a Meade LX200 12" telescope with an attachable SBIG ST-7 CCD camera. It is located in my own backyard in West Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge near San Francisco, CA. With help from several friends I built the observatory over a period of 8 months in 2008. First light was in November of 2008.
Under the Construction menu you will see photos of the construction process. I designed the building that supports the dome by modifying a design from the Exploradome Company of Minnesota, the manufacturers of the dome. (http://www.exploradome.us/). If any of you are interested in more detailed information about the design, feel free to email me at richneal@pacbell.net.
Under the Gallery menu you will find a sample of the images that I have taken with my telescope/camera combination.
The Chile Educator Ambassador menu is a section I have just added. In it I describe my experience, once again in Chile, with the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program (ACEAP). The trip was in June 2017.
Under the Outreach menu you will find pictures and some description of training workshops and other courses that I have taught during recent years. These include teacher-training workshops in the south american country of Chile, an after-school program in Oakland, CA. (Universe Quest), and an evening adult course I teach called Astronomy 101.
Finally the Local Events menu contains descriptions of times when I have had visitors to my observatory and other occasions where I've set telescopes at other locations.