1999 - Construction of the dome began.  It is a pre-fabricated fiberglass dome, made by Boyd Observatories.  Boyd received a "Hot New Products" endorsement from Sky & Telescope magazine in December 1998.  The original telescope was a 5" Celestron C5+, and I had a 3" pipe for a pier, although I never figured a good way to attach the telescope to the pier.  That setup actually got very little use.

2003 - The old pier was removed as it was too small.  A much larger pier was installed, and a 12" Meade LX200GPS Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope was equatorially mounted on it.

2004 - The dome was finally given the name "Xanadu Observatory".  Xanadu was a mythical place written about in a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the 18th century.  My favorite rock group, Rush, sang about it in their song, Xanadu: "To stand within the pleasure dome, decreed by Kubla Kahn..."  I decided that since the dome is a place where I can practice the most enjoyable hobby of astronomy, it was an appropriate name.  Note that several months later, the Cassini spacecraft imaged a feature on Saturn's moon Titan which was also named Xanadu.

2005 - The telescope was upgraded to a 14" Meade RCX400 Advanced Ritchey Chretien.