'Scopes and Wind (Days 1 and 2)
We left Austin and headed to the McDonald Observatory near Ft. Davis, TX. Casey hooked us up with a small tour of sorts with one of his professors, Don Winget. We got there kind of out of place, but were soon hooked up with a nice taco dinner before we went up to the 82” dome. They have a larger 107” dome but we didn’t get to go in there. They asked us to give them a call when we were done with dinner and walk on up the hill to the dome and they would let us in at the bottom. He inquired as to our possession of flashlights and we told him “of course.” As we were getting up from dinner, John made a comment about how we wouldn’t really need flashlights. Not two seconds later the door to the lodge closed, the darkness set in and John offered out into the blackness "Uhhhh, where’d you go, Mike?" Quite hilarious.
We made it up to the dome and searched around it until Don's wife let us in. Once we were inside we got a small tour and intro into the history of the observatory. The man who put down the greenbacks for the observatory had issues with his free-loading family and they held up the opening of the observatory in an attempt to get more of his money after he died. Otto Struve (whom the 82" telescope dome is named for) was the first director of the observatory and was actually from the University of Chicago, which ran the observatory until UT had a solid enough astronomy program in the 1960s.
Don and Karen had just arrived at Ft. Davis and were going to stay there for a couple of weeks. They were attempting to interpret the effects/presenece of dark matter, which can’t be measured electromagnetically, only gravitationally (if’n I remember correctly). How they were doing this was to look at the pulsations from a white dwarf star about 100 light years away. Apparently these pulsations are the most accurate form of clock available anywhere these days, and the pulsing should naturally deteriorate slowly (like over the course of 2.5 billion years). They had noticed (after 25+ years of observation) that this deterioration was happening slightly faster than expected (i.e., 6 fewer blips, although 7 fewer would be the expected deterioration due to current understandings of dark matter). It's just kind of insane to think that this undetectable stuff makes up a majority of the universe.
They gave us each a copy of the Hubble Deep Field photograph.
So everything on there (except for two of them) represents a galaxy. They just layered photos from a tiny pin prick of space over the course of a few weeks. And it’s just retarded. I know it’s something that we’ve all probably caught wind of before from somewhere, but it’s just something you can get amnesiac about because you don’t see it and aren't even really imagining it when you look out at a clear night sky showing the stars in just our galaxy alone. It’s something you have to feel--sometimes with the aid of a series of images from a large telescope hangin out above the Earth--and that vastness loses its impact if you don’t see ourselves as important in it somehow. Crucially insignificant. Or insignificantly crucial. Whichever phrasing helps you sleep at night.
The next day we had some Alan Watts lectures that we were listening to on the Way to the Guadalupe Mountains. He identified that we can’t separate ourselves from the world outside us. Do you wonder where the self resides? There is no I am. Everything began in the same instant of space. This theme comes up again later. And has come up before. (Oh I went there.)
The Guadalupe Mountains were a little windy that Tuesday. I had wanted to climb El Capitan, but we got there and winds of 80+ mph were expected and potentially stronger that high up. So we went a-hikin in McKittrick Canyon, which the ranger compared to the Grand Canyon-before and after he had seen the latter. Sadly he was mistaken, but his heart was in the right place. The walk was nice and calm compared to the outside. Saw the Pratt House made all out of stone.
Kinda depressing since no one was at the house with coco or coffee or tea. They had these crazy Texas Madrones, which were all varying shades of red in color and often had a very gnarled structure. Apparently the bark peels in very thin sheets to expose younger, fresher bark--much faster than its older brother.
That wind was still there when we came out of the canyon and went to camp. We tried to pick a campsite that would be somewhat blocked. All five of those were taken and we just settled on any old one, pitched the tent and tossed some gear in it to keep it from flying away. Cooked up some soup, made some coco and finished off the night with some herbal whiskey in the car. A couple of times it felt like the wind might lift the car up off the ground, so we slept in the tent. That shit kept raging for hours. But when I woke up it was as calm as all get out.
It was the morning of Christmas Eve, the Hubble Deep Field picture was as vivid as ever and Phoenix was our destination. But what's a destination without a detour?
We made it up to the dome and searched around it until Don's wife let us in. Once we were inside we got a small tour and intro into the history of the observatory. The man who put down the greenbacks for the observatory had issues with his free-loading family and they held up the opening of the observatory in an attempt to get more of his money after he died. Otto Struve (whom the 82" telescope dome is named for) was the first director of the observatory and was actually from the University of Chicago, which ran the observatory until UT had a solid enough astronomy program in the 1960s.
Don and Karen had just arrived at Ft. Davis and were going to stay there for a couple of weeks. They were attempting to interpret the effects/presenece of dark matter, which can’t be measured electromagnetically, only gravitationally (if’n I remember correctly). How they were doing this was to look at the pulsations from a white dwarf star about 100 light years away. Apparently these pulsations are the most accurate form of clock available anywhere these days, and the pulsing should naturally deteriorate slowly (like over the course of 2.5 billion years). They had noticed (after 25+ years of observation) that this deterioration was happening slightly faster than expected (i.e., 6 fewer blips, although 7 fewer would be the expected deterioration due to current understandings of dark matter). It's just kind of insane to think that this undetectable stuff makes up a majority of the universe.
They gave us each a copy of the Hubble Deep Field photograph.
So everything on there (except for two of them) represents a galaxy. They just layered photos from a tiny pin prick of space over the course of a few weeks. And it’s just retarded. I know it’s something that we’ve all probably caught wind of before from somewhere, but it’s just something you can get amnesiac about because you don’t see it and aren't even really imagining it when you look out at a clear night sky showing the stars in just our galaxy alone. It’s something you have to feel--sometimes with the aid of a series of images from a large telescope hangin out above the Earth--and that vastness loses its impact if you don’t see ourselves as important in it somehow. Crucially insignificant. Or insignificantly crucial. Whichever phrasing helps you sleep at night.
The next day we had some Alan Watts lectures that we were listening to on the Way to the Guadalupe Mountains. He identified that we can’t separate ourselves from the world outside us. Do you wonder where the self resides? There is no I am. Everything began in the same instant of space. This theme comes up again later. And has come up before. (Oh I went there.)
The Guadalupe Mountains were a little windy that Tuesday. I had wanted to climb El Capitan, but we got there and winds of 80+ mph were expected and potentially stronger that high up. So we went a-hikin in McKittrick Canyon, which the ranger compared to the Grand Canyon-before and after he had seen the latter. Sadly he was mistaken, but his heart was in the right place. The walk was nice and calm compared to the outside. Saw the Pratt House made all out of stone.
Kinda depressing since no one was at the house with coco or coffee or tea. They had these crazy Texas Madrones, which were all varying shades of red in color and often had a very gnarled structure. Apparently the bark peels in very thin sheets to expose younger, fresher bark--much faster than its older brother.
That wind was still there when we came out of the canyon and went to camp. We tried to pick a campsite that would be somewhat blocked. All five of those were taken and we just settled on any old one, pitched the tent and tossed some gear in it to keep it from flying away. Cooked up some soup, made some coco and finished off the night with some herbal whiskey in the car. A couple of times it felt like the wind might lift the car up off the ground, so we slept in the tent. That shit kept raging for hours. But when I woke up it was as calm as all get out.
It was the morning of Christmas Eve, the Hubble Deep Field picture was as vivid as ever and Phoenix was our destination. But what's a destination without a detour?