As many of us, I have always struggled for my hobby. And as most of us I started with a mobile setup. A mobile setup is great since it allows to be mounted everywhere so you could chose a good place because o a good seeing or a deep darkness. But a mobile setup has also a lot of drawbacks. It requires the effort to load, unload and transport the telescope the mount and a lot of other stuff. Then you have to setup your equipment, perform the alignment, etc. At the end of the session you have to dismount and load your car with everything. Unfortunately all those problems increase with the scope size and, more important, with your age.

So it cames to a point in which big decisions are required: either to reduce your gear or to make your setup permanent. There are a few options here.

The first and simplest option, is to rent telescope time on a remote. managed location. This will allows you to have outstanding instruments and location. So you will be able to take extraordinary images. This solution probably fit best with those astronomer that are mostly interested in imaging processing.

At the opposite there is the solution in which you own your observatory. Owning an observatory is a doutening task.

There is also an intermediate solution which consist in putting your gears in a remote managed observatory.

So the best solution depends on your specific needs and wants. In my case, since I like the process of designing, building and running an observatory as I like operating it, I opted for a personal observatory solution. Anyway I also understand that this will imply a lot of trade offs.

After making firm this resolution the next step will be to decide which observatory I’ll have. Will it be a dome or a roll off?