The InFINNity Deck

The name InFINNity Deck originates from our grandnephew Finn. Ever since my own childhood I was fascinated by astronomy in general and telescopes in particular. However, so far it did not result in acquiring my own astronomical telescope and I usually used one of my Wild T3's for observing.

A few years ago my brother in law, with whom I later built the observatory, took me to the Astronomical and Meteorological Society Metius in neighbouring town Alkmaar, of which I became a member a year later. Being a member allowed me to borrow their Celestron C5. This telescope has an alt-azimuth mount and comes with a very light tripod, making the whole set-up quite unstable. Being a mobile set also meant time was required to set it up each night. Having borrowed it for three months made me realise that owning a telescope is great, but it would be nice if it were more stable and was mounted in an observatory to save time.

The last incentive came from my, then almost 6 year old, grandnephew Finn. Finn had asked for a telescope for his birthday and referred to a telescope from a toy store. Toy telescopes are regularly used by amateur astronomers, so I checked this model on various astronomy forums, but to no avail. From what I read the cheapest telescopes worth buying were at least three times the price of the one Finn wanted. To avoid disappointment we gave Finn something else.

In the meanwhile the bug had bitten me, and now definitely. After having explored the options, I finally made drawings for an observatory on the roof of our library. About a year later we received permission to start the build and on 15 July 2018 Finn, now 7 years old, opened the observatory which is now called InFINNity Deck.

Ever since the observatory has been used for visual observations using one of the four telescopes and astrophotography. Wanting to share the experience with others immediately resulted in an astronomy reach-out program that includes the local high schools and events like the yearly sun-watching-day that happened to have its first edition the year after InFINNity Deck was opened.