Went to the McDonald Observatory, which is 18 miles west of the park on a great drive through the mountains, this morning for a tour of the facilities. They had three cameras looking at the sun which we were able to examine for flares and spots in real time. Then we went into the dome of the 107” diameter telescope, saw the dome and scope rotate and turn and learned about the history of the facility. We then went to a second telescope called the Hobby-Eberly Telescope which was designed and constructed to gather a very large amount of light, specifically for spectroscopy, at extremely low cost. This thing is huge. The equivalent of 9.2 meter effective aperture makes it currently the world's fourth largest optical telescope. It only rotates while always being angled the same direction. Surprising the cast majority of the sky can still be seen like this, just when the earth’s rotation brings the area of sky into view at the preset angle.
Returned to camp and walked Sunny. Talked with a couple volunteers at the nature center display. Headed up the hill to the hotel where I heard there is a good, reasonably priced restaurant and may be a TV to watch the MSU basketball game. The lodge is wonderful. Almost built into the hill with a large foyer area with fire places, a piano, wonderful woodwork and a TV. I’m regularly awed at the work the CCC folks did with very limited resources.
Watched most of the first half then went to the black bear restaurant for dinner. Ran into some folks I met in Junction. Had a good dinner then went back to the lobby to see the end of the game. I guess I jinxed them since this was the first game I watched and they lost… Back at the trailer I walked sunny, we saw a javelin and talked with some neighbors.
About 8 I put Sunny to bed and headed back to the observatory for a “star party”. Saw another javelin on the road while heading there. The party started out in an outdoor amphitheatre with an extremely knowledgeable guide using a laser pointer to show us the 5 planets we could see and a ton of constellations. After a thorough discussion of the visible sky, we could look through seven pre-set telescopes. Two were inside domes. It’s amazing the things that are out there. The party wrapped up around 11. A coyote crossed the road in front of me on the return drive.
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