Mount Tuffley Observatory

Mount Tuffley Observatory is a backyard bungalow observatory in Gloucester, England, built by retired postman and lifelong amateur astronomer John Fletcher.

About Mount Tuffley Observatory

Fletcher, with 45 years of amateur astronomy experience, built the observatory with help from a local panel beater, and it was officially opened by TV astronomer Heather Couper. Despite its modest, home-built origins, the site has been used for genuine research work: near-Earth asteroid searches, supernova observations, and astrometric and photometric studies of asteroids, comets, and quasars.

History

The observatory has hosted several hundred school visits over the years and was featured on the Channel 4 series Equinox. John Fletcher himself appeared on Sir Patrick Moore's long-running programme The Sky at Night in 2002, bringing wider attention to what one dedicated amateur can achieve from a garden in Gloucester.

Telescopes & research

The observatory's instrument is a Meade LX200, a 25-centimetre f/6.3 Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector operated robotically and by computer, which has supported its asteroid, comet, supernova, and quasar work.

Location & getting there

Mount Tuffley Observatory is in Gloucester, in the south-west of England, a private garden site rather than a remote mountain-top facility.

Visiting Mount Tuffley Observatory

The observatory has a strong track record of hosting school groups, though as a private residential site, any visit should be arranged in advance rather than assumed to be open to drop-in visitors.

See your named star from here

A robotic 25-centimetre telescope capable of tracking faint asteroids and quasars is more than capable of finding the coordinates of a symbolically named star too. Name a star and look it up in the star catalogue.