For those of you that have been around here for a long time despite my year plus absence or at least like Global Geek News on Facebook, you know that my primary hobby is astrophotography.  I’ve written many posts in the past showing some of the pictures I have taken and discussing the equipment I use so I thought it only made sense to show off my new observatory!

Ok, its not exactly new as in brand new because I am the third owner of this SkyShed POD XL3 but its new to me!

A couple of months ago I was bored and browsing one of the big astronomy equipment classified forums when I came across this SkyShed POD XL3 which just so happened to be up for sale and only about 50 miles away so I couldn’t pass it up!  I had been planning to build my own observatory with a different design but when I came across this one for such a great price, I knew I would be an idiot if I didn’t try to get it.

Its going to need a little TLC with some new paint since its flaking off inside but otherwise its in pretty good shape and I’ve been very happy with my purchase.  Having 3 expansion bays for storage of all of my astronomy equipment is certainly handy and I’m thinking of putting a table or shelf in at least one of them to have a permanent computer in the observatory running the show rather than just taking my laptop out there every time.  Overall, its a really well designed observatory with a clamshell style dome that rotates on roller blade wheels.  Its been about a month that I have had it assembled and operational so far but there has only been one clear night since then for me to get out and really use it.

I’ve included some pictures of the observatory and my telescope setup in the post but if anyone has any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments below!  As far as my astrophotography equipment, I have updated my telescope setup for astrophotography post to reflect all of my current equipment (minus the observatory) but you can also ask questions about any of that in the comments below as well and I will do my best to keep that post updated in the future.

Finally, every observatory deserves a name but I haven’t come up with one I like so if anybody has any suggestions for a name for my observatory, please leave them in the comments below!  I would love to hear them!

Feel free to share this with any of your astronomy loving friends!  Enjoy the pictures below!