Starfront Observatories
Submitted By Jeff G. Rottman
About 80 miles east of San Angelo, Texas, a young astrophotographer named Bray Falls is running one of the largest ‘telescope ranches’ on Earth.
Stargazers from around the world ship their telescope gear to Bray, who hosts hundreds of them on his 40 acres of gently rolling terrain near Rockwood.
The site is rated a ‘dark skies Bortle 1’ zone, offering pristine views of the cosmos free of light pollution.
Bray—who is widely recognized for deep-sky imaging and discovering new nebulae structures—accepts clients’ telescopes, mounts them, and then allows remote positioning of the scopes from the owner’s computer anywhere on Earth for a monthly fee.
The ranch maintains a rental space for nearly a thousand telescopes stored inside a dozen large metal buildings called Starfront Observatories.
Each telescope is securely mounted on a concrete pier, and accurately aligned with the celestial pole to ensure it’s perfectly parallel to Earth’s axis of rotation. The alignment enables the telescope to track the night sky seamlessly.
Starfront Observatories and the Milky Way
During the day, the roofs of the buildings safely protect the scopes, but at night, the fun begins as the roofs roll back to offer the telescopes’ nightly ritual of peering into the depths of the universe, yielding control to their owners thousands of miles away.
With these advanced scopes, owners obtain high-resolution images of whatever they care to look at.
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The cost to rent a space for your telescope range ranges between $99 and $149 per month, not including an installation fee or the costs of any on-site tech support or equipment purchases.
The observatory buildings are gated, and equipped with security cameras and 24/7 private security to guard against burglaries.
(Learn more about Bray in this BBC interview).
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