This Observatory Is More Like a Designer Home

There’s something quite awe-inspiring about stargazing. Looking deep into the speckled abyss of the cosmos is a humbling sensation felt by all since the dawn of humankind. Stargazers both serious and amateur will be left, well, starstruck by the Gemma Observatory – a slick, custom built observatory in that can rotate to give different views of the night sky. Situated on a distant mountaintop in New Hampshire, the Gemma Observatory sits in the middle of a 5km dark-zone radius, completely unobstructed by light pollution for optimal night-time viewing.

The exterior takes design cues from its surroundings, with the angular structure and zinc cladding crafted to mimic the shape and hues of the rugged granite terrain and setting. The interior however, is decorated with fir plywood for a homely feel while still maintaining a nod to nature inside. Inside you’ll find a lower level comprised of a research office, sleeping bunk and warming room, to keep the experience nice and cozy.

A helical staircase leads up to slick external observation deck, but the piece de resistance is the observation platform inside the turret, kitted out with a large telescope and a camera array.

Traditional domed observatories are capable of turning for a 360 degree view of the night-sky and the Gemma Observatory can do the exact same. A single person can rotate the turret by hand with a built-in mechanism usually reserved for high-precision manufacturing facilities. A sliding hatch for the telescope is also operated via hand-crank. And, if that detail wasn’t enough, there’s a gap in the cladding that frames Polaris (the North Star), when the turret is locked into the southern cardinal position.

No word if the Gemma Observatory is available on AirBnB, but one would assume the night-stay would be on the side of astronomical.