Observatory History:

This had been a dream to live under fairly dark skies and to have enough land to construct a observatory in our own backyard.  In May of 2003 we purchased a home in Valley Center with 2.8 acres of mostly open land.  The elevation is 1850 feet and the top of the ridge is about 2000 foot.  Theres a large valley on the other side of this ridge which decends to about the 800 foot level.  This creates a light air flow over this ridge which is great to push back the marine layer from the Pacific ocean which is about 30 miles away.  I had plans to build a dream observatory on this property. But as time went by, while I was still working the growth in the area increased to the point where the skies had gotten worse and it was not worth the investment to build.  So I continued to roll the astro-gear out of the garage until we sold the home in 2019.