McDonald Observatory

After an early dinner, we drove about 15 miles NW of Fort Davis to the UT McDonald Observatory, which is one of the major astronomical research facilities in the world.  We attended the Star Party Program and got to view the stars through telescopes.  We had a very clear night so we got an awesome view.  The guides were very knowledgeable and you can tell they love what they do.  These pictures are just of the route there and of the area.

We drive to the very top of the mountain so this is a view about three fourth of the way up.

We view the domes that hold the telescopes as we drive up the mountain.

Another dome…..

We are getting really close.  These domes have glass viewing openings.  They house the telescopes plus fit about 20 people in there.   Each one of us got to view each of the stars and star clusters.   The sky was so lite up with stars that I can not describe. I had never seen so many stars.  We picked a very good night to go.  It was awesome. There were about 150 people at this Star Party.

We are almost there!

We arrived at the McDonald Observatory.  This area was named after a Professor of Astronomy at UT Austin, Frank N. Bash.

It was nice to see the UT emblem here.   I am proud of it because I retired from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, which is a branch of UT Austin.

These are all the pictures I got since I could not take pictures while star gazing.   It was a wonderful evening.