For the past several years, my wife and I wanted an observatory in our yard.
The initial plans were for a roll-off roof observatory. Of course, this
raised several questions and problems that were not easily resolved. I saw
an advertisement for a domed observatory from
Ash-Dome
in
Sky and Telescope
magazine. The thought of having a classic domed observatory instead of the
roll-off roof observatory appealed to me. Fortunately, my wife was also
keen to the idea of a domed observatory.
Stand-Alone Building - Classic Dome
We first had to determine where in the yard our stand-alone domed observatory
was going to go. There were a couple of places we identified as likely
candidates but we weren't sure if our town would grant approval.
Connected to the House - New Addition
We then thought the observatory would get more use if it was somehow connected
to the house. But, we didn't want the observatory directly connected to the
current house. The solution to this was to extend the existing house by
putting on an addition and incorporating the observatory into the new addition.
Contacting an Architect
In New York state (and probably in most states), you are not allowed to add
onto your existing house without approval from the town. The town requires
plans developed by a licensed architect. We contacted an architect to
work with us to design the plans for our new addition including the
observatory.
