Fort Davis
I broke down and bought a Texas Wild flower book earlier, but the desert is a whole nother matter, so I had to get a book on the Northern Chihuahua Desert wild flowers too. Now I have a better chance of knowing who is who. I guess I owe my Landscape Architect and mad gardener mother this obsession. Among gardening folks, knowing the Latin name of every plant is pretty much your gardening credentials. When I worked at Lowes and Home Depot, there were often folks who would grill me on the name of everything before asking my opinion about what plant to buy. I am in no way an expert, but I can’t seem to stop trying. It does mean I am looking at the ground around me almost constantly for who might be growing there (We are constantly being warned to watch out for snakes and scorpions, but I have seen none of either). There are a few that are still a mystery.
We headed up north to Fort Davis, which is tucked under the Davis Mountains. The main attraction here is the McDonald Observatory, three really big telescopes high in the clear dry TX sky. In the daytime, there is a tour, you get to go into two of the three monsters and hear about them. They truly are huge, and move around inside their domes every which way, the dome rotates too. Not to many astronomers actually look at the sky with their eyes anymore, it is all radio waves and spectrometers. They have to sign up months in advance for a time slot at night, and in many cases, it is all done over the Internet. Seems like cheating that they don’t have to stay up all night ruining their eyes.
Best part of the daytime show, a live shot of the sun through one of the telescopes brought into the auditorium. We can see the surface bubbling, and burping out protrusions. Not the same as the much bigger solar flares, these are swirling loops of hydrogen that are reacting to electro-magnetic things going on. We get to see sunspots too, another solar skin problem caused by magnetic fields being upset. Mixed in are short videos and still shots from Hubbell and other outer space telescopes that have color added. These are absolutely fantastic. One shot of the sun’s surface makes it look like a pot of molten metal bubbling and spitting, and the white-hot internal fires look dangerous. Some of the shots of the protrusions look like fine streamers of gold billowing up and swooping back down.
We get a tour of the night sky with more Hubbell colorized shots that look like something Bierstadt might have painted or maybe Turner. Breathtaking. We are told that the colors are just science, coded for the elements and chemicals that we are seeing (which they tell with spectrometer readings, I guess). That may be, but they are stunning visuals on their own. God’s Art?
Back down in Fort Davis, we visit the Fort. It is a National Park, and done up properly, so we can see how the soldiers lived, and the officers in the restored and furnished quarters, and some gristly instruments in the hospital. Only one lonely horse in sight. This fort is not fortified, no walls only some earthworks just in case, but there were no fights here. It was a base for cavalry troops that kept the main El Paso to San Antonio road safe for silver, ores, and other traffic. The fort is tucked under a red box canyon, and the buildings are arranged in an orderly way around a vast parade ground. There is a taped sound show, you can hear the bugles, the band, the officer’s yells, and the stomping of human and horse feet as the company assembles for Retreat. Which makes no sense, I would call it Inspection, because that’s what is really happening..
In the evening after dark, we return to the Observatory for a Star Party. More talks on the constellations which are a little faded out by a nearly full moon, then we get to see Saturn, the moon, Orion’s Eagle Nebula, The Pleiades etc through smaller telescopes. The real guys are using the big ones now. And yet another show in the auditorium. This was supposed to be a live shot of an asteroid, but was more clips and pictures instead. It was excellent, informative and beautiful.
The Davis Mountains are nice and rocky and majestic, once again a little altitude helps them to be a little greener. There is a lot of grass for out here, and we see more, fatter cattle on the ranges and glimpses of (more) prosperous ranches up in the lower vales of the mountains. The town of Fort Davis is tidy, and charming. I don’t know what they did with the usual collection of shacks and decrepit trailers, and rusting broken motor vehicles, but it’s nice. The campground is fairly new and very tidy and nice, too. The bathrooms are fancy and palatial, and they have spend money and energy (himself built most of it). We toyed for a moment with working here next winter, but then realized that we had already seen all the sights. We might still, it is lovely here.
We headed up north to Fort Davis, which is tucked under the Davis Mountains. The main attraction here is the McDonald Observatory, three really big telescopes high in the clear dry TX sky. In the daytime, there is a tour, you get to go into two of the three monsters and hear about them. They truly are huge, and move around inside their domes every which way, the dome rotates too. Not to many astronomers actually look at the sky with their eyes anymore, it is all radio waves and spectrometers. They have to sign up months in advance for a time slot at night, and in many cases, it is all done over the Internet. Seems like cheating that they don’t have to stay up all night ruining their eyes.
Best part of the daytime show, a live shot of the sun through one of the telescopes brought into the auditorium. We can see the surface bubbling, and burping out protrusions. Not the same as the much bigger solar flares, these are swirling loops of hydrogen that are reacting to electro-magnetic things going on. We get to see sunspots too, another solar skin problem caused by magnetic fields being upset. Mixed in are short videos and still shots from Hubbell and other outer space telescopes that have color added. These are absolutely fantastic. One shot of the sun’s surface makes it look like a pot of molten metal bubbling and spitting, and the white-hot internal fires look dangerous. Some of the shots of the protrusions look like fine streamers of gold billowing up and swooping back down.
We get a tour of the night sky with more Hubbell colorized shots that look like something Bierstadt might have painted or maybe Turner. Breathtaking. We are told that the colors are just science, coded for the elements and chemicals that we are seeing (which they tell with spectrometer readings, I guess). That may be, but they are stunning visuals on their own. God’s Art?
Back down in Fort Davis, we visit the Fort. It is a National Park, and done up properly, so we can see how the soldiers lived, and the officers in the restored and furnished quarters, and some gristly instruments in the hospital. Only one lonely horse in sight. This fort is not fortified, no walls only some earthworks just in case, but there were no fights here. It was a base for cavalry troops that kept the main El Paso to San Antonio road safe for silver, ores, and other traffic. The fort is tucked under a red box canyon, and the buildings are arranged in an orderly way around a vast parade ground. There is a taped sound show, you can hear the bugles, the band, the officer’s yells, and the stomping of human and horse feet as the company assembles for Retreat. Which makes no sense, I would call it Inspection, because that’s what is really happening..
In the evening after dark, we return to the Observatory for a Star Party. More talks on the constellations which are a little faded out by a nearly full moon, then we get to see Saturn, the moon, Orion’s Eagle Nebula, The Pleiades etc through smaller telescopes. The real guys are using the big ones now. And yet another show in the auditorium. This was supposed to be a live shot of an asteroid, but was more clips and pictures instead. It was excellent, informative and beautiful.
The Davis Mountains are nice and rocky and majestic, once again a little altitude helps them to be a little greener. There is a lot of grass for out here, and we see more, fatter cattle on the ranges and glimpses of (more) prosperous ranches up in the lower vales of the mountains. The town of Fort Davis is tidy, and charming. I don’t know what they did with the usual collection of shacks and decrepit trailers, and rusting broken motor vehicles, but it’s nice. The campground is fairly new and very tidy and nice, too. The bathrooms are fancy and palatial, and they have spend money and energy (himself built most of it). We toyed for a moment with working here next winter, but then realized that we had already seen all the sights. We might still, it is lovely here.
posted by Thistledown24 at 9:02 PM
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