RENSSELAERVILLE — The Helderberg Earth and Sky Observatory president, Ron Barnell, says the not-for-profit organization’s plans to build an observatory are moving from Berne to Rensselaerville.

HESO had been planning for years to situate an observatory at Switzkill Farm, town-owned land located in South Berne near Rensselaerville. Months earlier, Barnell had said plans to build an observatory in Berne were in a “holding pattern,” and that the organization was looking at other places as well.

Now, Barnell says that HESO has three or four Rensselaerville locations in mind for the observatory, and is hoping to cement relationships with institutions in the town like the Edmund Niles Huyck Preserve, the Rensselaerville Library, and the Carey Institute for Global Good, kicking this off with an event at the Carey Institute on Friday.

Karen Schimmer, Berne’s town council liaison for Switzkill Farm told The Enterprise in February, after Barnell said HESO was considering other locations, that plans to build the observatory at Switzkill Farm were discontinued last fall, but that the town would continue to host events through HESO there.

According to Barnell, HESO shied away from building at Switzkill Farm in part because a conservation easement from the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy would not allow the observatory to clear away enough trees for an optimal view. Barnell also said the dirt roads, which he described as a “glorified almost trail” would not be suitable.

Mark King, the executive director at the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy, said this week that cutting down trees is allowed by the easement, but is limited, and varies in different sections of the land. He said the easement was placed on the land in order to prevent future town boards from not conserving the open space.

King said that the conservancy had had talks with HESO as far back as a year ago to build an observatory on already cleared land, but was never presented with a formal proposal.

HESO had proposed building an observatory to Berne’s Switzkill Farm Board in September 2016, projecting the cost at $1.25 million and anticipating grants, donations, and partnerships to finance the project.

Ted Kunker, the chairman of the Switzkill Farm Board, said that HESO had wanted the town to fund and carry out paving of the dirt roads on the property for around $10,000, as well as to cut down trees surrounding the proposed site for the observatory: an elevated parcel of land by the shale pit. The land was allowed by the easement to be clear-cut, but Switzkill Farm Board members voted against the measure, said Kunker. He said that the two organizations parted ways about nine months ago.

“We left on good terms,” he said. “We wish them well.”

He said that Switzkill Farm is still promoting astronomy and taking advantage of the property’s dark skies in its programming. The board is currently in the process of getting the land certified “silver” — second best out of three categories: a nighttime environment with minor impact from light pollution — with the International Dark Sky Association, he said, and some members of HESO have continued to work with the board as individuals.

Barnell said that the organization would be continuing in its “2020” plan to complete construction of the observatory by that year. He said that HESO is completing its application to be a not-for-profit, and has added “Science Center” to the organization’s name.

Switzkill Farm has a Bortle dark-sky scale rating of 3 out of 9 where 1 is the darkest. Barnell said areas of Rensselaerville vary in terms of darkness, but also said that the International Dark Sky Association found the Huyck Preserve to be excellent candidate for a dark-sky certified area.

Two observatories currently exist in New York State: the Adirondack Public Observatory in Tupper Lake and the Kopernik Observatory and Science Center in Vestal, near Binghamton.

The Carey Institute will be hosting an event led by University at Albany physics Professor Kevin Knuth, who is an advisor for HESO, in a tribute to the science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov on Friday at 8 p.m. at the Guggenheim Theater, with a solar telescope for use earlier to view the surface of the sun, said Barnell. Asimov was part of The Institute on Man and Science, which preceded the Carey Center at the Helderberg location.

Knuth teaches physics and informatics at the University at Albany, and has researched subjects such as exoplanets, information processing in the brain, and the “brain-computer interface,” according to his website. He will discuss a program known as the “Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence,” which scans stars in the galaxy in order to search for extraterrestrial life, along with other formulas and inquiries into extraterrestrial life. (See Barnell’s letter to the editor.)