Tag Archives: McDonald Observatory

West Texas wildfires

Posted on April 21, 2011 | Comments Off on West Texas wildfires

These Davis Mountains fires are out now but this is the way they looked at their worst last Sunday. That’s McDonald Observatory’s giant HET in the foreground. Photo by Frank Cianciolo of the observatory’s visitor center.

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Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate

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Light decoder

Posted on February 9, 2011 | Comments Off on Light decoder

het_primarybHobby-Eberly Telescope, a spectroscopy giant, in the Fort Davis Mountains.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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Texas scope testing 68 candidate earths

Posted on February 4, 2011 | Comments Off on Texas scope testing 68 candidate earths

“We also go to the really big telescopes, and we get very sharp images to see if there’s anything around that star that could explain it. When we’re through with all those tests, we go to the Keck or the HET or another large telescope and we measure the spectra.

“If the spectra show that the star is wobbling, we get the mass of a planet. In particular, we can go to the Keck, get the period of the planet and get the epoch (where the planet is on its orbit). And that should exactly match what we have with Kepler. If they have the same orbital period and they occur at the same time, we can say yes, we have a confirmation and can announce it.”

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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More 107-inch telescope

Posted on May 25, 2010 | Comments Off on More 107-inch telescope

HarlanTelescope1

Looking more like a giant X-ray machine than a telescope, McDonald Observatory’s 107-inch reflector inside its closed dome on Mt. Locke is one of the few, if not the only, modern telescopes with bullet holes in its primary mirror. I’ve heard and read several versions of the tale. This one pretty much echoes most of them.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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Harlan Smith 107-inch reflector

Posted on May 21, 2010 | Comments Off on Harlan Smith 107-inch reflector

HarlanTelescope

Dome of the telescope at McDonald Observatory in West Texas that helped map the near side of tidally-locked Luna before the landings began in 1969.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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Hobby-Eberly 9.2 meter

Posted on April 13, 2009 | Comments Off on Hobby-Eberly 9.2 meter

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The HET at McDonald Observatory in West Texas didn’t make this Top Ten list, but it should have.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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Sky tour

Posted on March 17, 2007 | Comments Off on Sky tour

Mr. B. said his favorite part of the Fort Davis trip was touring the big green 107-inch telescope at McDonald Observatory on Tuesday and then the Star Party Wednesday night. We timed the sky tour just right, as Wednesday night was clear, not as chilly as Tuesday, and the wind was light instead of stiff. You might, however, rename a Star Party a line party, as you have to stand in line at the various amateur telescopes, and with hundreds of people there during Spring Break, the lines were long. So we packed it in after three viewings: Messier 35, the Orion Nebula, and Saturn. Got another brownie from the visitor’s center Star Date Cafe to share and then drove back down the mountain.

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Posted in Uncategorized

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