{"id":715453,"date":"2026-07-28T13:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715453\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T13:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:49:09","slug":"odd-texas-ranch-raises-telescopes-to-provide-dark-sky-viewing-for-stargazers-in-cities-remotely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715453\/","title":{"rendered":"Odd Texas Ranch \u2018Raises\u2019 Telescopes to Provide Dark Sky Viewing for Stargazers in Cities Remotely"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Starfront Observatories<\/p>\n

Submitted By Jeff G. Rottman<\/p>\n

About 80 miles east of San Angelo, Texas, a young astrophotographer named Bray Falls is running one of the largest \u2018telescope ranches\u2019 on Earth.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The site is rated a \u2018dark skies Bortle 1\u2019 zone, offering pristine views of the cosmos free of light pollution.<\/p>\n

Bray\u2014who is widely recognized for deep-sky imaging and discovering new nebulae structures\u2014accepts clients\u2019 telescopes, mounts them, and then allows remote positioning of the scopes from the owner\u2019s computer anywhere on Earth for a monthly fee.<\/p>\n

The ranch maintains a rental space for nearly a thousand telescopes stored inside a dozen large metal buildings called Starfront Observatories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Each telescope is securely mounted on a concrete pier, and accurately aligned with the celestial pole to ensure it\u2019s perfectly parallel to Earth\u2019s axis of rotation. The alignment enables the telescope to track the night sky seamlessly.<\/p>\n

\"\"Starfront Observatories and the Milky Way<\/p>\n

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\u2019 nightly ritual of peering into the depths of the universe, yielding control to their owners thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n

With these advanced scopes, owners obtain high-resolution images of whatever they care to look at.<\/p>\n

MORE DARK SKY ZONES: Oregon Outback Named World\u2019s Largest Dark Sky Sanctuary \u2013 a Stargazer\u2019s Paradise<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The observatory buildings are gated, and equipped with security cameras and 24\/7 private security to guard against burglaries.<\/p>\n

(Learn more about Bray in this BBC interview<\/a>).<\/p>\n

SHARE This Clever Entrepreneur\u2019s Idea to Help People Access Space\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starfront Observatories Submitted By Jeff G. Rottman About 80 miles east of San Angelo, Texas, a young astrophotographer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1813,5030,59,8474,90,1372,416,1583,3329,56,54,55,659],"class_list":["post-715453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-astronomy","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-gb","tag-rural","tag-science","tag-small-business","tag-space","tag-stargazing","tag-texas","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}