Xanadu Observatory Photo Gallery

A Summer Lightning Storm Keeps the Dome Closed.

Monsoon Season comes each summer and although it usually provides some much-needed rain for the dry Arizona climate, it also means that observing opportunities are few and far between.

Xanadu in Winter.

A rare Tucson snowstorm on January 21, 2007 provided this beautiful picture. The only bad thing was that no observing was possible that night!

Daytime shot of the dome with open shutter.

The pier.

Elevated base and steps.

The dome sits on this base so that the fence walls won't block my view.

Another daytime view of dome.

Interior of the dome.

It's rather cozy inside, the diameter is only 7 feet.

12" Meade LX200GPS.

This was the second telescope to operate from within Xanadu. It is now used as a field scope for star parties.

View through shutter.

The closer tree was cut down after this picture was taken, but the farther tree remains.

Walkway to the dome.

One needs to be careful not to fall in the pool after a late night observing session!

Celestron C5+ and Coronado PST set up for solar observing.

The C5+ was the first telescope to see light from inside the dome.

Poolside Observing with the Williams Optics Zenithstar 105mm refractor.

This setup offers a slightly different observing experience since it is much wider field than the telescope in the dome. This picture was taken at night, look closely and you can see Deneb shining above the dome. Since the exposure was 20 seconds, stray light caused the surroundings to appear well lit, but it was actually quite dark to the naked eye.

Cousin Nate Lane visits Xanadu.

Nate and Ben visited Xanadu in early June, 2006. They both have a high level of astronomy knowledge and Nate has his own scope and misc gear. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate so we were not able to do any nighttime observing, although we did manage to view some solar activity in the PST.