Tranquility Base is our home at New Mexico Mexico Astronomy Village 

Our home is situated on 17 acres in a platted development named Butterfield Trail Estates, which our community calls New Mexico Astronomy Village or NMAV.  Our home is located within NMAV.  Astronomy activities typically involve people wandering around in the dark, and out here in the desert, there are rattle snakes. We addressed this problem by fencing in 2 acres with snake resistant products, removing the vegetation, and covering the surface with fine gravel, the point of which is to make the fenced in area as safe as possible.

Beginning in 2013, we started construction inside the fenced area. We built a house, a barn, a shop, and a greenhouse. In 2017 we expanded the controlled perimeter around the fencing to add irrigated landscaping. In 2018 we began working on construction of the astronomy related facilities. First, we constructed a 250 square foot control room, a 20 foot visual observatory, and increased the size of the outdoor viewing deck to 1,100 sq. ft.   

There is a link below to a photo archive of our construction adventures, beginning with dirt, mud, and weeds. We completed the two remaining 17 foot observatories in March 2022 . If all goes well, we hope to complete all of the remaining construction before the end of 2022.