The McDonald Observatory is located near the unincorporated community of Fort Davis in unincorporated Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. In Law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any Municipality. Fort Davis is a Census-designated place (CDP in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. Jeff Davis County is a County in the US state of Texas. It is named for Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States Texas ( is a state geographically located in the South Central United States and is also known as the Lone Star State. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The facility is located on Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. The Davis Mountains are a range of mountains in West Texas, located near Fort Davis, after which they are named West Texas is a region in Texas that has more in common geographically with the Southwestern United States than it does with the rest of the state [1]
The site is campus property of the University of Texas at Austin and receives its main funding from the university. The observatory is equipped with a wide range of instrumentation for imaging and spectroscopy in the optical and infrared spectra and operates the first lunar laser ranging station. An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial and/or celestial events Spectroscopy was originally the study of the interaction between Radiation and Matter as a function of Wavelength (λ Infrared ( IR) radiation is Electromagnetic radiation whose Wavelength is longer than that of Visible light, but shorter than that of The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment measures the distance between the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. McDonald works closely with the astronomy department of the University of Texas at Austin while maintaining administrative autonomy. Astronomy (from the Greek words astron (ἄστρον "star" and nomos (νόμος "law" is the scientific study The McDonald Observatory also produces and consults on StarDate, a daily syndicated radio astronomy segment hosted by Sandy Wood that airs on stations throughout the United States in both English and Spanish. In Broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast Radio shows and Television shows to multiple individual stations without going through English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States
The Otto Struve Telescope and the Harlan J. Smith Telescope are located on Mount Locke at an altitude of 6,791 ft/2,070 m. The Otto Struve Telescope was the first major Telescope to be built at McDonald Observatory. The Harlan J Smith Telescope is a 27m (107-in telescope located at the McDonald Observatory ( The Hobby-Eberly Telescope, dedicated in late 1997, is located on the summit of Mount Fowlkes at 6,659 ft/2,030 m above sea level. The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a 92 meter telescope located at the McDonald Observatory. The high and dry peaks of the Davis Mountains make for some of the darkest and clearest night skies in the region and provide excellent conditions for astronomical research.
Currently, the observatory operates four research telescopes at its West Texas site:
- 9. Research is defined as Human activity based on Intellectual application in the investigation of Matter. 2 m (360") Hobby-Eberly Telescope
- 2. The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a 92 meter telescope located at the McDonald Observatory. 7 m (107") Harlan J. Smith Telescope
- 2. The Harlan J Smith Telescope is a 27m (107-in telescope located at the McDonald Observatory ( 1 m (82") Otto Struve Telescope
- 0. The Otto Struve Telescope was the first major Telescope to be built at McDonald Observatory. 8 m (30") large format imaging telescope
A 0. A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects and the collection of Electromagnetic radiation. 9 m (36") telescope, formerly used for research, is now used for visitor programs.
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Visiting
The Frank N. Bash Visitors Center includes a café, gift shop, and interactive exhibit hall. The Visitors Center also conducts daily live solar viewings in a large theater and tours of the observatory's largest telescopes. The most popular programs are the evening star parties, which allow visitors to look through large telescopes in the Telescope Park and enjoy an indoor program as well. A star party is a gathering of amateur astronomers for the purpose of observing the sky
Special viewing nights, during which visitors can stay onsite and view directly through eyepieces on the 0. 9 m, 2. 1 m or 2. 7 m telescopes, are held on a reservation-only basis. Programs on the two larger telescopes also include dinner. Check the Visitors Center website for availability.
History
The McDonald Observatory was originally endowed by the Texas banker William Johnson McDonald (1844–1926), who left $800,000(the bulk of his fortune) to the University of Texas to endow an astronomical observatory. William Johnson McDonald ( December 21 1844 &ndash February 8 1926) was a Paris Texas banker who left $850000 (the bulk of his fortune The provision of the will was challenged by McDonald's relatives, and after a long legal fight, construction began at Mount Locke. The 2. 1 m telescope was dedicated on May 5, 1939, and at that time was the second largest telescope in the world. Events 553 - The Second Council of Constantinople begins 1215 - Rebel Barons renounce their allegiance to King John Year 1939 ( MCMXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. McDonald Observatory was operated under contract by the University of Chicago until the 1960s, when control was transferred to the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Harlan J. Smith. Harlan James Smith (August 25 1924&ndashOctober 17 1991 was an American Astronomer.
The observatory now is home for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, operated jointly by the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, and Georg-August University of Göttingen. The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related, land-grant, space grant public research University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München also known as LMU, is a University in Munich and with more The University of Göttingen ( German: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) is a University in the city of Göttingen, Germany. The HET now ranks as the fourth largest telescope in the world, its cost being about 20% that of other similarly-sized telescopes in use today.
Research today at the McDonald Observatory encompasses a wide variety of topics and projects, including planetary systems, stars and stellar spectroscopy, the interstellar medium, extragalactic astronomy, and theoretical astronomy.
The observatory also hosts one of the four globally networked Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) telescopes, and is a Monitoring Network of Telescopes (MONET) site.
Gallery
 Frank N. Bash Visitors Center |
See also
References
External links
- McDonald Observatory
- McDonald Observatory Clear Sky Clock Forecasts of observing conditions.
- StarDate Online
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