McDonald Observatory Fort Davi, Texas .......parked at Purde Ranch

Stopped for one day at Fort Davis stopped at this little resurant for the best ever hot home made cinnamon rolls.  So good we ate dinner there at night too. A MUST STOP  travel point for anyone driving by....forgot to mention they had pies too.  Camped at Prude Guest Ranch.  This was off season for them and we were the only people there...somewhat creepy.  A big barking thing, right next to the camper, started barking twice after 10pm...this added to the creepy.  $11.75 tonight.
The observatory was 16miles up the road for our morning tour.  We missed the star party.  This is when we would have been able to look through telescopes ourselves at the night sky.  We missed it because it was the night before.  The star party is the reason why we wanted to go there in the first place but the night they had it they saw zero so there was no need to be disappointed.  

The dinning room pictured here was at the ranch. 
​They had a beautiful lodge.

Sun dial which said it was 1:30.

The top of the Hobby-Eberly building turned around the telescope
The picture above is a video of the dome moving in position so the telescope could face the sky.  The telescope also moves continually to keep up with the earth's rotation.  It is 86" in diameter.  The room is kept at the same temperature they estimate the outside temperature will be that evening.  It was 36 degrees in there for our viewing!

This was the 107" Harlan J. Smith Telescope...the hexagon was a sample of the mirrors that make up the mirror portion at the bottom of the scope.  This telescope did not have a cylinder around it so you could see all the works inside.  This is a cost effective way to build a telescope in this location, costing I believe $10 million. This is compared to the telescope they were duplicating that cost $100 million.