About NRIO Remote Imaging Observatories

Tim Ray founded Nicolas Remote Imaging Observatories LLC (NRIO) in 2025. Tim lives on-site to provide expert support for your astrophotography goals and success. Tim's career as a professional project manager, IT consultant and CCNE (Cisco Certified Network Engineer) bolster his skill set and uniquely enable him to deliver outstanding service and support to you.

With over 50 years of experience in this field, Tim has built over 100 telescopes for personal, professional, and educational use. He has built 2 private observatories in Missouri and is adept with electrical and network design. With thousands of hours of imaging experience, you can find Tim's images at www.astrobin.com/users/AstroTrucker/ .

Tim resides full time on-site at NRIO to provide timely support for your remote telescope and its security, with daily inspections of the observatories and their operation. In addition, secure on-site storage is available for costumer equipment as it arrives at NRIO for staging and installation. On-site customer accommodations are provided if you wish to participate in your equipment installation and certification of your remote operation. RV hook up and dump station are available on-site. Free shuttle service is provided to Albuquerque for those traveling by Air.

Tim created and funded these observatories to share the dark, clear, steady skies of Pie Town, New Mexico with the world. Your imaging can excel here, at 7,500 feet elevation, with Bortle 1 skies, and boasting 1.2 – 1.4 arcsec average seeing for 275+ nights each year for imaging (based on 5 years of data). This pristine area is known for its star parties, and is home to many local astronomers and observatories for good reason.

NRIO and its facilities are located on the New Mexico Dark Sky Land Astro-Wilderness corridor (Hwy 60). These dark skies are in the process of being certified as Dark Sky Sanctuaries by DarkSky International, in connection to the DarkSky International New Mexico Chapter. 

Our gated community hosts 3 commercial remote hosting facilities, including NRIO, as well as many private observatories. NRIO enjoys the support of these community experts in the imaging and remote hosting field.