The "center piece" or our trip was a visit to The University of Texas' McDonald Observatory, a working observatory about 20 minutes northwest of Fort Davis, Texas. It has several large telescopes and also has programs for visiting amateur astronomers.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
You check-in at the visitors center which has a museum, theater, cafe and gift shop. They have a "twilight program" indoor at the center that ends when it's finally dark enough to go out and observe. They start the outdoor portion by pointing out several stars, planets and constellations in the night sky.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
After the twilight program, we went to the "Star Party", where you look through several smaller and medium telescopes and visiting with the observatory staff.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
If you take the in-depth program, they take you in a bus up to one of the main telescopes where you spend the evening talking with the professional astronomers, viewing what they see, and hearing about their research (but that's not available every night, so we'll try that again later).
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
We had a clear blue sky in the afternoon, but it began to cloud up later. One thing about going in April, the altitude and the season combined to get a bit chilly. It was 38 degrees (3 deg C) when we left, about 11:30 pm.
Our next stop would be Seminole Canyon State Park (next post). To get to our guided tour, I had to get my lovely wife up early.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
We headed east from Alpine well before sunrise and saw the dawn just east of Marathon, Texas.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Snapped this one just a second or two before the sun peaked over the hill.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
The Pecos River meets the Rio Grande (which is the Texas/Mexico border) at what is now Lake Amistad (friendship).
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Out on the highway, traffic is quite light and the cars travel pretty fast. The speed limit is 75 mph (125 km/hr), but people tend to drive just a bit faster, say around 80-85 mph (130-140 km/hr). I noticed quite a few of the small night-critters, rabbits, etc. fall prey to the night-time traffic, providing a steady diet for the local buzzards (Turkey Vultures).
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Next stop, Seminole Canyon, where several thousand years ago, paleo-Indians spent their winters under the protection of the overhanging cliffs along the Pecos River.
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| Photo by Mark W. Laughlin |
Y'all come visit.
We'll take a drive. ;-)
- Mark
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