Along the same windy Texas road as Davis Mountain State Park resides the McDonald Observatory, a research facility of the University of Texas in Austin. Knowing that our Thanksgiving camping trip was taking place during a new moon, and that the Big Bend Region is an International Dark Sky reserve, we made it a point to plan a visit. In fact, we bought tickets for the Star Party on Friday night - which, unfortunately was cancelled because of the first snow of the season that evening.
I checked online to see if there were any tickets left for Saturday night, but it was showing sold out. RDB and I went over to the Observatory Saturday afternoon anyway, as general admission was under $10 for the both of us, and we could at least check out the exhibits.
The visitor center has a relatively small museum (appropriate for the relatively small ($3/person) entry fee) and a few interesting learning points. (Case in point: the museum space was made in partnership with a well-known oil company out of Houston.... same company that I partnered with for several years who planted a tree in my honor!) Being self-guided, you had the ability to travel to the domes there on campus and check out the telescopes - except that the snow/slush/ice still hanging around kept us from visiting the two larger domes. They definitely got more snow up here on the mountain tops than we did in the campground.
We drove up to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) dome and the George T. Abell Gallery - built into the side of the telescope dome so that visitors could see the telescope without being cramped inside the dome housing (and behind a glass wall so we wouldn't accidentally mess with anything either!)
The magnitude of the HET and its innovative 10-meter, 91-segment primary mirror makes it one of the largest optical telescopes in the world. The current research being done under the HET Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) will search a large region of the sky 10 billion light years beyond the visible stars in the Ursa Major constellation.
It is such an incredible thing that there are so many individuals devoted to the sciences beyond just what we see here in the natural world. That was obvious to us from the staff and volunteers who were in attendance at the Star Party that evening (we were in luck - I asked at the front desk if there were any options for attending since ours had been canceled the night before, and yes! they had several cancelations, so there was space for us.)
Behind the visitor's center is a rock-hewn amphitheater where the program starts. Kevin was our host for the evening and he just radiated love for the galaxy and knowledge about the stars. He spent the better part of an hour walking us thru techniques for getting the best view in a telescope (averted gaze), how to protect our night-eyes ("You traveled hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles to be here tonight, so Be. Here. Please, turn off your cell phone."), where to see shooting stars, ("Always in the direction that I'm not looking!"), even how to leave the parking lot with our headlights facing away from the Observatory to protect the night vision of those still looking thru the telescopes ("If you see a bunch of angry people in the headlights front of you, you did it wrong.")
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| Hard to get really clear long-exposure shots without a tripod. |
As he transitioned into the constellation "tour" part of his talk, I looked up and could clearly see the Milky Way above us. As it has before, it brought tears to my eyes to be reminded that there is so much more out there than the everyday hustle-and-bustle that is our daily grind. Kevin continued our education of the stars, explaining why and how the various constellations came to be, guiding us with his bright green laser pointer to various places in the dark sky, pointing out satellites as they flew by, including the only satellite orbiting the Earth with people on board - we saw the International Space Station ("Everybody wave!")
Kevin finished out the educational part of the Star Party by reminding us of the importance of minimizing light pollution. I've commented on the impact of it on the blog before, too, on another trip to an International Dark Sky Park. Pointing to the northern horizon, Kevin talked with us about how the glow of light pollution from the Permian Basin region, and all the oil and gas exploration/drilling that's been increasing over the years, has become a problem. Thankfully many companies have been willing to work with consultants from the Observatory and light pollution in the region peaked back in 2016. Though its no laughing matter, it was kinda funny when the crowd went "ohhhh!" as a star shot across the sky in the direction we were all looking, "Yes, yes, a shooting star, but come on! Priorities, people!!," lamented Kevin as he gave us a final warning of the cost of inaction.
With the conclusion of Kevin's talk, we were released over to the telescope section of the park - not the BIG telescopes we had toured early, but several smaller 'amateur' astrologists who had volunteered to come out and line up sights for us, AND the two smaller domes there by the visitor's center. Some of the expected targets for the evening included Jupiter and Saturn, several star clusters, and The Pleiades (aka: The Seven Sisters, aka: Subaru) which you can see as the light blue cluster towards the top of the photo below:
I obviously didn't get many pictures (trust me, you did not want to turn on your iPhone in this crowd - people were getting serious about keeping their night vision!) but towards the end of the event RDB and I snuck off to the edges of the area and got a few night shots. Just an FYI - the difference between a 10 second shutter time and a 30 second shutter time at night is huge:
10 second shutter
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| 30 second shutter |
We've been to Star Parties at the George Observatory at Brazos Bend before, so we knew what to expect, but the educational component, and Kevin's knowledge and passion in the tour of the night sky, really set this experience apart. Would it be too much if I said: this was a FIVE STAR event? Because it 100% was, pun totally intended!
One last note: if you're a space geek like me, you might be interested in the longest running national radio science segment - StarDate - that is produced here at the Observatory; I've heard them on NPR so many times I can't count, and hadn't put two-and-two together till this weekend. RDB and I picked up one of the StarDate magazines in the gift shop, and it's a quick read, has neat information, and would be a great gift to any budding astronomers in your life.
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(Hope y'all enjoyed this "sneak peak" of our #gobbleinthemountains Thanksgiving '22 camping trip. More to come as the adventures continue!)
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