Spring Break 2018

I was invited to the University of Texas McDonald Observatory to help support their 2018 Spring Break activities. I left Colorado on Thursday March 8, 2018, spent the night at a Days Inn in Roswell, NM and arrived at McDonald Observatory on Friday afternoon, March 9. I was there to support their week long Spring Break 2018 activities.

I drove down in my Prius and they set me up in a nice trailer on the grounds. It has a comfortable bed, toilet, shower, microwave, refridgerator and Internet.

The Observatory was setup for catering to Spring Break visitors. Each day, except Sunday and Thursday, their schedule of activities brought about 2000 people to visit the faciliy. The fees schedule was very reasonable and the programs put on by the staff were very well organized. My work schedule for the week during the day consisted of escorting tours through the 107-inch telescope. I was in the back of the group to ensure that everyone stayed together and didn't wander off to other parts of the dome.

In the evening, there were public star parties that I supported. 500 visitors stood in lines amongst the various telescopes setup. Each telescope was pointed at a unique celestial object. Almost every night was a bit couldy, but the visitors that stayed were often treated with spectacular views. The skies cleared for an hour and during that time, the lines of people at each telescope took their turns looking through the eyepieces.

The domes contained larger telescopes and about 20 more telescopes were setup along the walkways.

Most nights the wind blew pertty good, which made it feel much colder than the air temperature was. I took all my winter gear and was glad I had it.

On Thursday March 15, 2018, I drove into Fort Davis, TX to see how it had changed. I had not been in this area since 2010. I passed the Prude Ranch, where in 2 months, they will host the Texas Star Party.

On Thursday night, March 15, we had the night off. I used the 16" f/9 Ritchie-Chertien telescope in one of the domes to look at my faintest Herschel 2500 galaxies. The sky was not all that clear but the transparency was outstanding. With dark, dry skies, I was amazed at how well I could see 15th magnitude galaxies with this scope. Here is my observing log of the objects I recorded. I found 75 galaxies on the list. I wanted to stay up longer, but since this was my first time using this telescope, when my escort said let's go to bed, that was the end of my night.

They used Software Bisque's Sky X to run the telescope, which I was very familiar with. The scope I used is in the picture below.

One of the perks of being a volunteer at McDonald Observatory was all the behind the scenes tours that I got. I was taken into the 82-inch dome and was given quite a tour of this historic telescope.

I left early Sunday March 18, 2018 for the 12.5 hour drive home from west Texas to Colorado.

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