Parallax opened on a single ridge-top site in 2009, chosen after a multi-year sky-darkness survey across the range found this spot with the least light pollution reachable by road. We're still there — three working telescopes, none of them decorative, all of them used most clear nights of the year.
Nine people run the whole operation: an instrument lead who treats mount calibration like a craft, a session designer who has taught the same "finding Orion" lesson hundreds of times and still enjoys it, and a monitoring lead who keeps the actual sky-darkness numbers, not just the reputation.
Our team
Renata Kovač
Picked this ridge in 2008 after three years of portable sky-quality surveys across the range, and spent a decade since defending the dark-sky agreement that makes the site worth visiting.
Tomasz Wren
Maintains all three mounts and their tracking calibration — the person who decides when a telescope goes back in for service rather than out for a session.
Aiyana Cole
Builds the pacing of every guided session, from first-timers finding Orion to marathon deep-sky nights for returning guests.
Dev Anand
Runs the site's ongoing darkness measurements and the light-pollution advocacy work with the valley below.
Parallax is a fictional observatory built for this website demonstration; the names above are illustrative.
Where we are
1 Ridge Observatory Road, Cedar Summit — night sessions by reservation only, weather permitting.