Black Burro Observatory

From childhood I was captivated by the night sky, poring over astronomy magazines and dreaming of capturing my own deep‑space images. After more than 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, I retired in 2025 and our family of six settled in the Piedmont foothills of Lexington, NC. That fall we began building the observatory, and by spring 2026 it was fully operational in our backyard, tucked beside the pasture animals and Bruno the burro, whose name inspired Black Burro Observatory.