McDonald Observatory
On our way from El Paso to Lampasas we stopped for a day in the Davis mountains to visit the McDonald Observatory. Those of you who listen to NPR will recognize McDonald as being the origin of the StarDate program that airs daily. It was fascinating! There were only 8 people there on the day tours so we got to do a lot of exploring and asking questions.
We started with wandering through the deserted visitors center and then saw a short film on the history of the observatory. It is part of the University of Texas and contains 3 LARGE telescopes as well as many smaller ones.
After the film we heard a presentation about the sun and got to view live images of it from one of the telescopes. We learned about sun spots, solar winds, etc.
Then came the big tour of the two biggest telescopes, the 2.7 meter and the 9.2 meter (the measurement refers to the diameter of the mirrors in the telescope).
It was fascinating to learn about how they are used, see how they move, open the dome for viewing, etc. This is a view of the "old style" 2.7 meter telescope.
The newest one is actually used strictly for spectroscopy and was built for about 20% of what an old style telescope costs and is the 4th largest in the world.
After the tour we hung out for a while and waited for the twilight program where we learned about the constellations, and participated in a living model of the solar system (I was Mars). The temperature dropped significantly and the crowd got bigger as the time for the star party approached.
We trooped outside, bundled up as much as possible and viewed different objects through the telescopes that they had set up behind the observatory. We saw Saturn, two different nebulae, a star cluster, the Andromeda galaxy, and Mercury. We then headed inside for a film, coffee, and most of all, warmth.
Then it was back outside to do a "constellation tour" where we all stood around looking up and the guide had a high powered flash light and pointed out the different constellations, talked about their mythology, etc. What we were really doing though was waiting for the moon to rise. As soon as the moon peeked over the rim of the hill the stars in the lower part of the sky disappeared.
The moon had been full the night before and was amazingly bright. As soon as it made its appearance we all headed back out to the telescopes to view the moon. It was a fabulous, but bone chilling night. We were most amazed at what we could actually see with the naked eye. The observatory is in one of the darkest points of North America so we could see more stars than we ever thought possible.
John says:
"One of the coolest things I saw this evening was a dust band in the ecliptic plane.
When looking up at the night sky, the normal band of bright stars (the Milky Way) is the disk of our galaxy (actually, just one of the arms; we're about 2/3 of the way out from the galactic core). However, our solar system is actually tilted away from the galactic plane. The plane of the solar system, across which the planets and asteroids (mostly) orbit is called the ecliptic plane.
Normally this is invisible, though you can sort of imagine it as an arc across the sky if several of the planets are visible at once. On this night shortly after dusk, however, the sun was reflecting back on dust left over from the formation of the solar system and you could actually see the ecliptic plane arcing across the sky. It was really incredible!"
We started with wandering through the deserted visitors center and then saw a short film on the history of the observatory. It is part of the University of Texas and contains 3 LARGE telescopes as well as many smaller ones.After the film we heard a presentation about the sun and got to view live images of it from one of the telescopes. We learned about sun spots, solar winds, etc.Then came the big tour of the two biggest telescopes, the 2.7 meter and the 9.2 meter (the measurement refers to the diameter of the mirrors in the telescope).
It was fascinating to learn about how they are used, see how they move, open the dome for viewing, etc. This is a view of the "old style" 2.7 meter telescope.
The newest one is actually used strictly for spectroscopy and was built for about 20% of what an old style telescope costs and is the 4th largest in the world.
After the tour we hung out for a while and waited for the twilight program where we learned about the constellations, and participated in a living model of the solar system (I was Mars). The temperature dropped significantly and the crowd got bigger as the time for the star party approached.
We trooped outside, bundled up as much as possible and viewed different objects through the telescopes that they had set up behind the observatory. We saw Saturn, two different nebulae, a star cluster, the Andromeda galaxy, and Mercury. We then headed inside for a film, coffee, and most of all, warmth.
Then it was back outside to do a "constellation tour" where we all stood around looking up and the guide had a high powered flash light and pointed out the different constellations, talked about their mythology, etc. What we were really doing though was waiting for the moon to rise. As soon as the moon peeked over the rim of the hill the stars in the lower part of the sky disappeared.
The moon had been full the night before and was amazingly bright. As soon as it made its appearance we all headed back out to the telescopes to view the moon. It was a fabulous, but bone chilling night. We were most amazed at what we could actually see with the naked eye. The observatory is in one of the darkest points of North America so we could see more stars than we ever thought possible.John says:
"One of the coolest things I saw this evening was a dust band in the ecliptic plane.
When looking up at the night sky, the normal band of bright stars (the Milky Way) is the disk of our galaxy (actually, just one of the arms; we're about 2/3 of the way out from the galactic core). However, our solar system is actually tilted away from the galactic plane. The plane of the solar system, across which the planets and asteroids (mostly) orbit is called the ecliptic plane.
Normally this is invisible, though you can sort of imagine it as an arc across the sky if several of the planets are visible at once. On this night shortly after dusk, however, the sun was reflecting back on dust left over from the formation of the solar system and you could actually see the ecliptic plane arcing across the sky. It was really incredible!"
posted by Robin at
10:55 AM
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