Private Observatory in Texas

Sea West managed this exciting design-build project, from the initial site feasibility study through the final system integration and user training. Starting with a blank canvas on the client’s Texas property, our team performed a site feasibility study to ensure proper location of the observatory. Sea West created a design and set of Construction Documents and broke ground on the foundation.

The observatory features a 10’–6” Ash Dome and a PlaneWave CDK500 telescope, integrated with a Baader IMP85 Instrument Selector. This selector enables seamless switching between three camera systems: the Moravian C5-100, ZWO ASI2400MC, and ZWO ASI678MC, offering flexibility across a wide range of imaging targets from deep sky through high resolution planetary imagery. The entire system is controlled remotely through a fully automated observatory management system. This includes a dome control system, weather station for environmental monitoring to detect changing weather and light conditions, remote power management, UPS battery backup for dome closure in the event of a power outage, an all-sky camera, and multiple interior network cameras for monitoring the dome and telescope.