The Bunker Ranch Observatory has long been a dream;
making it a reality started in the summer of 1997,
with an article in the June issue of
Astronomy Magazine about
modifying a large utility building kit into a rolloff-roof
observatory. The author, Dave Kriege of Obsession Telescopes,
described how to "Build a Backyard Observatory for Peanuts".
So the search started for a suitable piece of property, with the basic
considerations being that it had to be way out in the middle of
nowhere, but still have access to phone and electricity. These two
goals often turned out to be mutually exclusive; however, a number of
possible locations did emerge. The first
piece of property we tried to buy was in a great location with perfect
geography -- high up on the south side of a hill, with a forever view
to the south, east, and west. It was, however, too expensive and
completely covered with softball-sized granitic rocks.
We finally ended up in New Mexico, on a 40-acre plot of land that is
unfortunately not on a hill, but rather in a valley. It's nice and
flat -- but it would have been preferable to have been up off the
valley floor. It's in a great area, though.
During the two-year search for land, the plan for the observatory
evolved away from a wooden rolloff building. The plan now was to
build a metal building and to provide some temporary living quarters;
as the site was 175 miles by road from our home in Tucson, single-night
trips would be, to say the least, impractical. However,
the original "peanuts" idea was now completely out the window (or at
least it would have been, if the planned building had
had
any windows).
I acted as my own general contractor for the building and associated
facilities, and secured a builder. He backed out of the project after
a slow start, but found another builder for us and the project began in
earnest.
It wasn't too long afterward that I began to learn just how many hundreds
of details a general contractor had to manage ...