There’s something out there...

Abbey Ridge Observatory (ARO), built in 2003, is named for the location at which it formerly stood: a granite ridge in the Stillwater Lake region of Nova Scotia.

Relocated in 2026, it now sits at a site just off Highway 333, about a 45-minute drive southwest of Halifax.

The Abbey Ridge Observatory is a robotic astronomical observatory located in Stillwater Lake, NS, Canada. It is owned by Dave Lane.

It is one of only three observatories in the world, along with the Burke-Gaffney Observatory and the Mini Robotic Observatory, that can be controlled from Mastodon, and email in a fully-automatic way! You can even use its dedicated Communicator App

At this site, you will find information about the observatory, its work and how to use it.

Equipment Summary

The observatory is built around a fiberglass 10-foot diameter Home-Dome. Inside is a Celestron C14 Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope mounted on a Losmandy Titan german equatorial mount controlled by a SiTech controller. Its imaging camera is an SBIG ST8XME CCD camera with dual Optec IFW filter wheels (9 effective filters), Optec NextGen telecompressor, and an Optic TCF electric focuser. We also use an AAG CloudWatcher to monitor the sky conditions. There are more details here.

Initial notes about this page (and website) from Ian Bowden:

  • This website is a work-in-progess; a migrated copy from https://www.abbeyridgeobservatory.ca/ where you can still view and browse the original. Eventually, what you’re seeing here will replace that website.
  • Most of the pages and posts have been copied as-is. Therefore, many references to the original website, its location, Dave Lane, etc. still exist in this copy. Some of those may remain as is, some might be edited, and some might be removed.
  • As a whole, the website is quite rough and I still expect to do much polishing of it, bringing it up-to-date in appearance and functionality. Eventually, I might install a utility that will allow stakeholders of the website to affix “virtual sticky notes” throughout the as-built website, providing me with editing instructions, asking questions regarding specific elements. etc.
  • I have developed a temporary logo for the website, replacing the one I pasted below, which looked a bit dated to me. If somebody artistic (not me!) wants to develop something, they’re welcome to!
  • A replacement hero image (the primary image on the home page), perhaps of the observatory in its current situation, would be appreciated. Most images from the present site are very low-res and unusable as large-scale images for the new website.
  • I rewrote the introductory text (above) as per the current situation regarding the location of the observatory. The second section (smaller text) was copied from the original site and probably needs editing.