Ga-Lun-La-Ti
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Introduction I have been planning this observatory since I was a teenager but when it came time to start the build I realized that I had never given a single thought to what I would call it. Having looked at other observatories built by enthusiasts over the past 30 years I knew that all good obs must have a name. Still, I had no ideas beyond those I had seen already used. I'm not Cherokee but part of me is and my ancestors certainly were. One day I was looking up something related to ancestry and ran across the Cherokee story of The Beginning. It was a Cherokee version of the Beginning similar to the one I was familiar with from Genesis. I knew that I had found a name that fit me and my new observatory to be. Here is Genesis 1-1 through 1-5... 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Here is the Cherokee story of the Beginning... “In the Beginning of the Cherokee Universe, there were two worlds: The heavenly world called Ga-Lun-La-Ti, which was placed high in the heavens, and the lower, dark world where the forces of evil lived. Ga-Lun-La-Ti was populated with beings in animal, human and plant forms. All creatures spoke the Cherokee language and lived together in harmony. The earth was but a ball of water on which gigantic fish and reptiles lived. The universe of the Cherokees depended on harmony and balance. Light was balanced by dark; things of goodness balanced by things that hid from the light of day in the shadows of the darkness. In the beginning there was no sun, but a Great Tree of Life grew in the center of Ga-Lun-La-Ti. It lit the world so all could see and cast its light down on the dark waters below. So it was that the Creator lived by the Tree of Life where he tended the plants and cared for the animals. Sometimes, the waterfowl, the hawks, and eagles flew down in the darkness below; giant turtles and muskrats swam on the water’s surface and bathed in the pale light of the heavenly tree. When the Creator’s work was done, he sat by the Tree, admiring his world around him and below... “ - Taken from the Cherokee Beginning/Legend of the Strawberries -" When my work is done on my observatory, I intend to sit in it and admire the universe around me that He has created. - Jeff 
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GaLunLaTi