A Little Family Reunion

Bobby and Mark

Today we dropped in on Mark, my first cousin once removed: he is my mom’s first cousin; I am one generation removed from them. See how that works? We didn’t have a phone number for him, only a post office box. Mark does a lot of the maintenance and some of the restoration at the Fort Davis National Historic Site. He wasn’t there yesterday, so we drove back today and popped in on him. He was shocked! He joked that because the family is so big, some relative was bound to show up one day and surprise him.

The last time I would have seen Mark was at my great grandmother’s 100th birthday, 24 years ago. He was very gracious and we chatted for a bit, but I didn’t want to monopolize his time — he works after all, unlike us. We snapped a picture and I gave him our blog address, so he could see pictures of Maud and Ruby (his aunts, my great aunts) from our visit to them way back in October.


The visitor’s center. See the sundial in front of the building?

We then headed back up to the McDonald Observatory for their daytime tour. Once again, it was a great visit. We learned about spectroscopy, which is a crucial technique to astronomers in identifying the characteristics of stars, such as age, size and true brightness. We learned about the Sun, its layers, and the occurrence of sun spots and prominences.


Inside the dome of the Harlan J. Smith telescope.

Finally we got to tour the two largest telescopes there. The first, called the 107-inch Harlan J. Smith telescope because of the diameter of the mirror, is huge and impressive. The telescope weighs 170 odd tons and is precisely balanced on two massive concrete piers that extend down to the bedrock of the mountain. The building around it, including the dome and the floor around the telescope, are separate from this so that vibrations made in the building will not disturb the telescope.


Looking from the 107-inch telescope to the HET.

Then we saw the more modern Hobby-Eberly (HET) Telescope, also known as the Rich Guys Who Donated Money So Their Names Are On It Telescope. This is the third largest telescope in the world and has the largest mirror in the world: 494 inches in diameter. It was designed and is used primarily to study the spectrum of stars — spectroscopy again. It is also a very cost-effective telescope. Its mirror is actually made up of many hexagonal mirrors, each of which can be adjusted separately. It is constructed of stock materials from other industries: the geodesic dome of a radar tower, the trusses used for the roof structure in some airports and other buildings, and so on. I would imagine that the ratio of valuable scientific data to dollar spent on it is as favorable as it gets.


The mirror is sitting just above the aqua colored frame.

After indulging in the food of the cafe there, we headed home. When we arrived, my cousin Mark drove up! He wanted to take us to dinner, but we just ate. We decided to get together tomorrow and perhaps drive into Marfa. That’s incredibly nice of him and we will see him tomorrow. Hopefully afterwards he can come back to the trailer for the gingerbread Danine and Elise are planning to make.


Speaking of spectrums of light! An unexpected rainbow over the Davis Mountains.