The Ozark Hills Observatory is a roof-mounted, privately-owned astronomical observatory in Missouri. It was first commissioned in 2000 and originally housed a 10” Schmidt Cassegrain telescope.
Today the observatory is fully automated and uses a wide array of instruments inside the dome and on its observation decks to observe and photograph our solar system and deep-space objects.
The Observatory is operated by the Richard Harris Family. Richard is an Amateur Astronomer who is an avid astrophotographer and a member of the Springfield Astronomical Society, the Amateur Astronomers Association, the Astronomical League, and the International Dark Sky Association.
Richard is known for his 10-year work on GEM telescope mounts and inventing the HyperTune Telescope procedure/process for which he sold the patent and copyrights in 2012 to an undisclosed company. The HyperTune service is widely recognized as a standard tuneup procedure for German Equatorial telescope mounts of all sizes, and has been performed on thousands of instruments worldwide.
The observatory is not open to the public.
All images you see on this website are original works, taken from the observatory by Richard Harris
The main pier-mounted instrument inside the dome is a 14" LX850 F/8 Schmidt Cassegrain telescope, utilizing an LX850 GEM mount with star lock technology by Meade.
Secondary instruments that are used include a TEC APO180FL F/7 along with many others listed on our equipment page.
The main camera system is an ASI 6200MM (monochrome) imager with RGB color, Hydrogen Alpha, Oxygen Beta III, and Sulfer II enhanced imaging filters.
The guide scope and camera is a Meade 80mm APO using the star lock camera system.
The Dome is a Technical Innovation, fiberglass shell, with Digital Dome Works technology driving the synchronization of the dome and shutter.
Software Bisque The Sky X professional suite is used for image acquisition, telescope slewing, dome automation, and other activities relating to the overall operation.
Anyone can be an astrophotographer. The next time you snap a photo of a sunset remember you are taking a picture of a star, or when you hold your camera up to the moon, you are shooting our planets only moon.
Richard Harris
