McDonald Observatory

It was a very chilly night last night. The temperature got down to about 1C again and we had  no heat in the MH. Upon awakening, I was thrilled to discover that my eyelashes we not frozen together and I could actually open my eyes. We thought a hot shower would warm us up so we grabbed out clothes and headed for the showers. There was no hot water. We had to settle for barely warm water instead. Yikes!

In spite of having a bad start today turned out to be  a great day. Anna and I set out to take a tour at the McDonalds Observatory. The scenery on the drive there was truly beautiful.

 

 

 

 

A few miles past Fort Davis we spotted the telescopes on the top of Mt. Locke.

 

 

 It may not look too high up in this picture but the road up there is the highest road in Texas and it  took a lot of steep climbing around the mountain before we arrived at the Visitors Centre. The Visitors Centre is very impressive with a Sundial Court in front of the entrance.

 

The tour started in the theatre where we listened to a scientist explain how telescopes work.  The scientists do not actually sit and look through a telescope. The telescope sends the information to a computer and the scientists view and can control the telescopes from their computers. (Of course, it is  considerably more complicated than that, but that is the short explanation).  We actually got to look at a live view of the sun up close and personal on the screen. He pointed out different sun spots and sun flares and it was an amazing sight to see. He  gave us lots of facts about the sun. The sun is actually large enough to hold 1300 planets the size of the earth, or 1000 planets the size of Jupiter. One of the sun spots as 8 times bigger than the earth.

 

After the lecture, the scientist drove us up to the top of Mt. Locke where he took us inside the Harlan J. Smith Observatory. The observatory was very cold inside as this room has to be kept the same temperature as it is outside and it is very cold on top of the mountain. Had I not already been nearly frozen to death in the MH this morning, I probably would have felt the cold more. But after this mornings freeze I was prepared for anything. I was wearing several layers plus my winter coat. We walked  up 70 steps to reach the dome that contained the telescope. It was worth the climb.

 

 

The telescope is one huge and very powerful telescope. It can take in 250,000 times more light than the human eye and it is worth 90 million dollars.  After explaining how it operated he asked if anyone would like to operate the switch to make it move. I eagerly stepped forward to volunteer. He handed me the box and told me which little joy stick to move. It was quite a feeling to push the stick and watch this huge telescope move. He then told me to move it back so the telescope would stop. I moved it back and the telescope kept moving. And moving. And moving. My heart was in my throat. As I know that computers go crazy around me I started to think that maybe I had had the same affect on the telescope. Finally, much to everyones relief, it stopped. The scientist explained that it was likely because it was so cold. Whew!

 This is me holding the control box.

The dome which houses the telescope weighs a million pounds. With a push of a button the entire dome starts rotating. The floor beneath the telescope can be raised so that work can be done on the telescope.

 

After being overwhelmed with an endless amount of data, we were driven to the Hobby-Eberly Observatory where we once again viewed a telescope (this one was much different) and listened to an overwhelming amount of information. I should mention that the view from the top of the mountain is breathtaking.

 

 

 

The entire tour lasted over 2 hours and after a quick breeze through the gift shop we headed off to Fort Davis to have a really good lunch at the Indian Lodge in the Fort Davis State Park.

Leaving there we drove to Pecos where we located a Wallmart and picked up a much needed heater. I am comforted by the fact that I shall not freeze tonight.

It has been a really great day. We have decided that we will spend another day here just hanging out and maybe exploring the little town of Balmorhea.