CHEYENNE (AP) - A few ranch homes are scattered about an expanse of golden prairie land east of town.

Sorrel horses with shiny coats graze nearby, a safe distance from gravel roads that run by the homes.

Horses, homes and gravel roads are common sights in this rural subdivision. What's not so ordinary is a project Paul Crips is working on.

Crips, a science teacher at Carey Junior High, is building an observatory not far from his family's home.

Some homeowners build fountains and barbecues outside their houses. But Crips chose to create something that interests him and also benefits local science students.

"I love astronomy," he says. "Astronomy is a passion of mine. I love to view the night sky. Being able to see the motion of the planets, even the craters on the moon, is exciting to look at."

Observing space answers questions and unfolds a lot of other questions, he says.

The observatory is a work in progress. He started on the project last spring and hopes to have it finished in December.

The afternoon sun reflects off the pressed sheet metal on the dome. Crips says he plans to cover the metal with fiberglass.

He designed the plans for the good-sized observatory. He poured its concrete floor, pressed the sheet metal and built a wooden base and paid for it himself.

The observatory is 12 feet in diameter and about 10 feet tall. Its domed roof is designed to open and close for the telescope it will house.

The top will move as the telescope moves, Crips says. He will be able to move the dome to stay with the telescope as it tracks the sky.

"You can move the whole thing," he says, as he grabs a bar connected to wheels fitted inside a circular track.

The observatory will house a 6-foot-tall Newtonian telescope with an 18-inch mirror.

Crips now takes this large telescope to area schools, and says it will be easier on the telescope to give it a permanent home.

Its 18-inch mirror is larger than the 12-inch mirrors of most amateur telescopes.

He bought the telescope with award money he got for being named Wyoming's recipient of the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship several years ago.

Marvin Shutz is vice president of the Cheyenne Astronomical Society. Crips' domed observatory is the first one he's heard of being built in Cheyenne.

The observatory will be the perfect place to hunt for comets, he says. Crips says he will invite students from the Carey Junior High Society of Student Astronomers and their parents to look for comets.

Any student from Carey can come to the observatory as long as their parents come with them, he says.

"Science is something that can be shared by everyone. Everybody needs to get excited," he says, adding that parents are a big part of learning.

The astronomers' group is made up of students at Carey Junior High and some high school students as well.

Crips says he plans to set up computer equipment with an electronic imaging camera to track regions of the night sky.

The observatory also will be a place where he can conduct astronomical research.

There are those who don't know why he likes to look at the night sky.

"They say you look at the same old globular clusters," he says. "But you never know what's going to change. You never know if you're going to observe a supernova."

Noelle Johnson is a student at Cheyenne's East High. She is a member of the Society of Student Astronomers, and was a student of Crips' in junior high.

"I think it's a really good thing," she says of the observatory. Her father, Wayne, also will visit the observatory.

Johnson said the observatory will be a great opportunity to help the junior high students learn about the solar system.

Learning should be exciting for students, Crips says. "I call my seventh-graders astronomers," he says, because they wonder about the night sky and ask question.

It would be great for a student to discover a comet and have it named for them, he says.

"That is the legacy of a teacher," Crips says.