Chippingdale

Welcome to the Chippingdale observatory website

Chippingdale observatory is a small private self built set up situated in the South East of England in the county of Hertfordshire

My interests in astronomy are practical and primarily involve visual observation using a variety of instruments housed in a building with a run off roof system.

I’m not limited in my interest to any particular kind of observation enjoying Lunar, Solar, Planetary observation, passing comets, meteors showers and Deep Sky observing. All of these fascinating areas of astronomy are linked together by my passion to capture images of all that I observe in my drawings.

The interest in drawing has grown and developed from my first tentative steps into astronomical sketching during the Mars opposition of 2003.

I hope that you will take time to look through some of the numerous pictures of my observatory and its instruments and also to view my sketches.

Building up this site will be a slow process as I have much information and many filed sketch images to add. With the much appreciated help of my friend and Web Master Darren Smith who initially set up this site before moving to Italy and new with the help of James Cooper I try to add new things as often as possible to keep the site interesting. Thanks for your patience.
Do visit my Blog it is constantly up-dated and always has links to images and sketches to illustrate and add interest for the reader.


I welcome feedback and dialogue with other astronomers and those interested in what I do at my observatory.

Clear Skies, Dale Holt