Telescopes

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is one of the world’s largest optical telescopes. It was designed specifically for spectroscopy, the decoding of light from stars and galaxies to study their properties. This makes it ideal in searching for planets around other stars, studying distant galaxies, exploding stars, black holes and more.

With its 107-inch (2.70-meter) mirror, the Harlan J. Smith Telescope was the third largest in the world when constructed in 1968. It is used to study the compositions of stars, the motions of galaxies, and to search for planets outside of our solar system.

Constructed 1933-39, the Struve Telescope was the first major telescope to be built at McDonald Observatory. Its 82-inch (2.1-meter) mirror was the second largest in the world at the time. The telescope is still in use today.

The 36-inch (0.9-meter) Telescope at McDonald Observatory was commissioned in the 1950s by the University of Chicago, which ran McDonald Observatory from 1932 to 1962. The telescope was used for astronomy research for decades. Today, it is used for public programs and teacher professional development.

The 30-inch (0.8-meter) Telescope is the smallest research telescope at McDonald Observatory. Its mirror was built using left-over material from the Harlan J. Smith Telescope.

The McDonald Geodetic Observatory focuses on geodesy – the science of Earth’s shape, gravity, and rotation – and how these change over time. It is part of a global effort to create a “terrestrial reference frame” for scientists: a collection of landmarks that all other locations on Earth can be measured against precisely.

The Rebecca Gale Telescope Park is probably best known as the setting of our popular Star Parties. Located behind the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center, the park it is home to an extensive array of instruments used for both public programming and scientific research.