From Driveway to Roll Off Roof: Video Tour of Newly Built Whispering Skies Observatory, Pat Cosgrove

Presentation by Patrick Cosgrove to Rochester, NY chapter of IS&T (Society for Imaging Science and Tech.) on 28 May, 2025.

Video tour and interview by Wayne Prentice.

Imagine hauling three telescopes, power cables, and laptop stations from your house to your driveway every clear night— and doing the precision balancing and alignments necessary to use them, and then having to take all of this down in the early morning. After five years of doing astrophotography from my driveway, I started my three-year quest to design and build my observatory. In this video-guided tour. I’ll show the resulting design. Join me to explore the triumphs, the challenges, and the lessons learned on my three-year journey to permanent deep sky imaging.

Patrick Cosgrove had a 32-year R&D career working in Imaging Science, Imaging Systems, and Algorithm Development for the Eastman Kodak Company. He then served as CTO for a startup company focusing on printing for smartphones. Retiring in 2019, he began his astrophotographic journey, which has led to the creation of the Cosgrove’s Cosmos website and YouTube Channel. Patrick has now had 20 images published in major astronomy magazines and continues developing and refining his astrophotography skills.

00:43 Introduction
03:02 Video Tour
43:14 Discussion