Ladies and Gentlemen, the Observatory is finished!

I did it!!! My little observatory is finished and it fills me with a lot of pride. It's one of the few things that I started and also finished. I'm always so full of ideas but usually get bored halfway through and abandon the project. But the call of the stars must truly be so strong that it pulled me through the hardest bits. On the other hand, once I get started with something that I like, I don't feel any fatigue anymore and if it didn't get dark in the evening I could have continued working on my shed until I'd fall asleep on the ground, without eating or thinking about anything else. "Very few but incredibly strong passions", they say about people with autism and this must really be true because it's all me. Well, I hope you like the result and that one day I can show you the beauty of the heavens because most people have forgotten about that and only rarely look up anymore. Of course we have to blame streetlighting for that as well because there are hardly any places left where this beauty can still be admired in its true splendour. Streetlights... the most useless invention of man if you ask me because coontrary to what many people believe it makes the streets LESS safe for traffic or against burglars, while consuming billions of € on electricity every year. How about that for CO² emissions!You don't believe me? Here are a couple of pictures to prove it! Below is a picture of totally dark crossroads. See how easily you notice that a car is approaching from the right...

Or how easily you notice a pedestrian (wearing a reflective vest)...

Compare this to illumlinated crossroads. Do you still notice the car coming from the left that easily?

And what about burglars? Streetlights provide them with just enough light to do their business without having to use a torch, but also offer them enough shadow where they can hide. The following picture was our backdoor in Belgium, illuminated by a one of these bloody halogen streetlights... When a burglar needs to use a torch in total darkness, I don't know, but according to me he would stick out like a sore thumb, wouldn't you agree?

Anyway, enough about that. I know that I can go on and on about certain things up to the point that everyone finds me bloody irritable. So at last, here are the pictures of my new observatory... :-)