McDonald Observatory
Trip To The Famous West Texas Observatory
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McDonald Observatory Trip To The Famous West Texas Observatory
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These pictures were taken from a trip made out to the western part of Texas in the summer of 2004. Be sure to visit the McDonald Observatory website and don't miss the information about the truely unique 9.2M Hobby-Eberly Telescope which has got to be among one of the most origional aproaches to a large and cost effective scope. The above site has great coverage of the scopes at the site and so below I only show a few of the best pictures from my roadtrip and a short movie of the 107 inch scope slewing. Hope you enjoy them. Please note: Please use the 'Back' key on your browser to get back from any of the links on this page. 2.7 meter Scope Below is a link to a movie that shows the 107 inch scope slewing. It came out sideways but since you are all used to inverted and odd orientations of visuals, that should hopefully not be too big a problem ... I took a detailed overall picture of the scope here and the backend detail is here.  9.2 meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope The Hobby-Everly telescope is such a unique appraoch to a scope that you should check it out at the website . A few pictures that I took are below and each one links to a larger more detailed picture should you wish to view the larger images. The scope was built in such an unusual way purely to hit an extremely low cost for such a large instrument. Basically the primary mirror is composed of 91 separate hexigonal mirrors and remains at a fixed 55 degree altitude (always). In this unique design the light gathering is done where the secondary mirror would be BUT in this case is the instrument assembly and is on tracks. The instrument assembly with light gathering is 13 meters above the primary mirror at prime focus and also has to deal with the tracking which involves simultanious control of 10 motors ( kids, don't try this at home ... ) Below is a poster from the lobby that shows main points about this unusual scope. Not the best of shots but interresting.  Here is a good picture of one of the 91 hexigonal 1-meter mirror segments and it's support. This mirror is only half-mirrored so you can see in this picture the 3 supports that align the mirror when assisted by the tall lasar tower just outside the dome.  Below is a closeup of the instrument assembly that is on tracks because it is the way the scope targets and tracks objects. 
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