McDonald Observatory - Nov 2005

The McDonald Observatory is located in the Davis Mountains in southwest Texas -- about 200 miles east of El Paso, near the town of Fort Davis. There are three major telescopes at the observatory -- the Hobby-Eberle (the 4th largest in the world), the Harlan J. Smith and the Otto Struve. The telescopes are used by astronomers from all over the world. Some of them actually go there to use the telescopes, but many just send in requests for research and then the resident researchers do all the work and send them the results. There are about 100 people who live on site in an assortment of houses and dorms. They have pretty awesome views, but it's a long drive to get to the nearest grocery store.

We spent two days touring the grounds and attending programs and thoroughly enjoyed our visit. We went on a guided tour, we browsed the museum and gift shop, we attended a Twilight Program on constellations and we participated in a Star Party. All were fun, interesting and we highly recommend them -- we even learned a lot too.

At the Twilight Program, we began in the auditorium where a staff astronomer showed us how to identify various stars, planets and constellations and also gave us a display of a really cool software package called Starry Night. This simulated universe program was so fascinating that we have added it to our "toys to buy" list when we have some extra bucks to spare. After the auditorium presentation, it was dark enough to go outside to the amphitheater where we continued our lesson on locating all these celestial objects. The scientist leading the group had an impressive laser-like flashlight -- a large light housed in a funnel-shaped tube that was about 3' long. It was very bright and powerful enough to point way up at objects in the sky. I had my binoculars, so could see some of the cool things even better. I even was even able to locate and see the galaxy Andromeda. How cool is that.

After the Twilight Program, we went right into the Star Party. We sat outside in the amphitheater while another staff astronomer talked about the various objects that we'd be seeing in 6 different telescopes and he pointed out their various locations in the night sky. We got to view two galaxies, a ring nebula (an exploded star), two globular clusters (thousands of stars all in one spot) and the planet Mars. Each telescope had a staff member there to answer questions and explain what we were looking at. The night sky was awesome -- so far from city lights and other forms of light pollution, that the stars absolutely filled the sky and the Milky Way was like a white banner across the sky. We enjoyed just standing outside and star gazing.

On that same evening was the beginning of the 3-day Taurid meteor shower and so lots of people were there to watch the meteor show. We only saw a few small ones, but a whopper went by while I was inside a dome looking through a telescope and I saw a huge splash of light across the lens. I heard everyone rush outside and they were all oohing and aahing -- even the scientists were in awe. Many commented that it was the best meteor they'd ever seen. I got outside just in time to see a faint trail across the entire sky, but missed the best part -- darn.

Two days later, we drove back to the observatory to go to their solar presentation as well as take a guided tour of their two larger telescopes. The solar presentation was held in their auditorium and we were able to see live feeds from one of the telescopes that showed us the sunspots they were tracking. Our tour guide was impressive and filled our brains with too many facts to even begin to remember. We were overwhelmed with information, but we figured it's great exercise for our aging brains. This is the 107" Harlan J. Smith telescope (the 2nd largest at the observatory) and that's our tour guide at the base.

This silver dome houses the Hobby-Eberle (HET) telescope. It is the largest at the observatory and it sits on a separate peak. The University of Texas in conjunction with 4 other institutions, designed this unique telescope. Rather than an enormous single mirror, it is made up of 91 small, hexagonal mirrors and it's unique support base that "moves" the telescope allowed them to build it for about 20% of the cost of a regular telescope of that same size. We were able to go inside and view this telescope, but it was being calibrated so we couldn't take pictures. The HET's dome has a reflective coating to minimize condensation forming on the inside. Our tour guide referred to it as the world's largest disco ball.