Star Party

Visitors are waiting for the sky to darken at the Star Amphitheater

Near Fort Davis in Trans-Pecos Texas (aka Far West Texas) is the McDonald Observatory, an astronomical observatory associated with The University of Texas at Austin. They have quite a few different programs there for the public including guided tours and, several nights a week, Star Party. The observatory describes it “night sky constellation tours in the Helen S. Martin Star Amphitheater and views of celestial objects though a number of telescopes.” This sounded pretty cool, so we decided to attend.

We go night sky viewings at parks sometimes, but they’re often disappointing. The people that put them on try their best, but it’s a challenging environment. Obviously, they’re usually attended by park visitors, many of whom are just looking for something to do. They don’t show the speakers a lot of respect, and too many show no respect or understanding of light discipline (refraining from using their cell phones or flashlights), meaning our eyes never get a chance to adjust to the dark to really see the stars well.

This one we had higher hopes for, but we were prepared to be disappointed.

We weren’t. It was great. If we lived in the area, I think we’d go several times a month.

While seated in the Star Amphitheater, the host identifies the brightest objects in the sky as we wait for darker skies.

We arrived before dark, which was nice since we had to take a winding mountain road to get there. (The observatory is on top of a mountain at about 6800 ft.) Their museum and gift shop were open, as it always is for Star Party, so we bought a few gift shop items and checked out the museum while we waited for the sky to darken. We then went out to a well-designed amphitheater, where the host pointed out stars, asterisms, and constellations as the sky darkened enough to see key features in them. The host stressed keeping cell phones and flashlights off, and people got the idea. Joy.

After the tour of the night sky was done, main event began: looking though the telescopes. The night sky events we go to in parks usually feature two or three descent enthusiast level telescopes, with long lines and delays as volunteers realign them after viewers knock them away from what were supposed to be looking at. We usually don’t get in line at those events anymore.

This was so different. We got to look through big telescopes, several were 22 inch aperture models. These are the ones that live in those domes you think of when you think of an observatory, and make moaning gear sounds when they move. It was incredible. We got to see a binary star system, where we could clearly see the smaller star orbiting the larger star. Through a couple of the portable telescopes we saw different views of the moon. One zoomed in close, the other where the whole lighted portion of the moon was visible. I’d never seen it in such detail before. The resolution was incredible. Television images, photos, or lesser telescopes don’t do it justice.

While the telescopes and their images were awesome (literally), the experience was greatly enhanced by the knowledgeable Ph.D. students at each telescope explaining what we were looking at.

It was a rewarding visit, and we now know we need to seek out observatories that offer viewing programs every chance we get.