Big Bend Trip Day 2- McDonald Observatory
From Fort Davis National Historic Site we went over to the McDonald Observatory for our daytime solar tour. I had really wanted to go to one of the star parties but I didn’t book it because I had been checking the weather and saw that it was pretty much just going to be cloudy when we were there so I just booked the solar tour.
When you head up to the observatory, your first stop is the Frank N. Bash Visitor’s Center. We checked in for our tour and then grabbed a snack at the café.
Once we were done eating we explored the exhibit in the visitors center while we waited for our tour to start. The entire exhibit is interactive and hands on.
Once our tour started we were lead into an auditorium. This part of the tour is supposed to show you the sun but it was too cloudy so we had a presentation with past images instead. After this presentation we moved rooms and learned more about the observatory and the telescopes. Once this portion was over, it was finally time to head up to the summit of Mount Locke to tour the telescope. They do provide a shuttle option to get up to the telescopes but there were a limited number of seats so if you didn’t get on the shuttle you had to drive yourself.
We only toured one of the telescopes. I believe it was the Harlan J. Smith telescope. On the bottom floor of the observatory there is a small exhibit. The exhibit is open for anyone to look at but you aren’t allowed up to the actual telescope unless you’re on the tour. Our tour of the telescope included a demonstration of how the telescope and the dome work and move.
Once our tour was over we stayed for a few minutes to we drove back into town and checked into the Fort Davis Drug Store and Hotel for the night. Stay tuned for a separate post all about it.
Have you ever been to an observatory?
Check out more of our Big Bend trip:
