Indeed, Howie Marion, a graduate of UT Austin, has had an interesting path. Howie grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and, at an early age, became interested in sailing. This interest would later become a passion, but, upon graduating from high school, Howie attended Stanford University where he worked towards a degree in comparative literature. "I was interested in reading and writing," says Howie, who describes himself as deficient in mathematics. While at Stanford and towering at 6 foot 4 inches, Howie also played basketball for the Stanford Junior Varsity basketball team.

After a year at Stanford, Howie enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley where he was a student for two years. During summers, he worked full-time for a sailmaker, and, after two years of school, Howie decided to devote all of his time to sailing and, literally, began to sail the world. His work as a sailmaker took him from the Bay Area to Italy, France, Hong Kong, and, eventually, Australia--travels and work to which he devoted over twenty years of his life. In 1987 and 1991, Howie worked for the Australians in racing for the American Cup. Then, he moved back to San Francisco and opened Marion Sailmakers. Howie had become fascinated by the science of sailmaking. The engineering and art of making a piece of cloth into the "engine" for a boat was intriguing to him.

With the birth of Monica, his first child, the family moved to Michigan where Howie worked to refurbish a house in payment for living there. For one year, they lived in this house, working with their hands as they completed carpentry, plumbing, and electrical renovations. However, Howie yearned to understand the physical universe to greater depths.

"I was always impressed with students who could be so focused and disciplined, because I certainly wasn't."

Howie returned to school to study physics at the University of Chicago. In his four years there he dived into science and worked with professors in investigating the nature of high-energy astrophysical phenomena, especially supernovae. In this work, he and his mentors wrote a paper refuting the claims of an astronomer at the University of Texas, Craig Wheeler, who Howie would later ask to serve on his Ph.D. committee.

Upon graduation from the University of Chicago, Howie traveled deep into the heart of Texas where he had hoped to pursue work in building astronomical instruments for McDonald Observatory. However, he became interested in work pursued by Peter Hoeflich, a theorist in the department. Peter strives to understand how supernovae, particularly Type I supernovae, work. Strictly a theorist, he needed a student to pursue observations of these phenomena with which to compare his models. Type I supernovae are important because they are very bright and can be observed to very great distances. Therefore, they are a useful tool in observing and studying the early universe. Unfortunately, very few people are working to understand the underlying physical processes that occur in Type I supernovae. Howie, Peter, and their collaborators are using the McDonald Observatory and telescopes at Mauna Kea Observatory to investigate these processes. Primarily, Howie observes the near-infrared spectra of supernovae and, working in concert with Peter, they attempt to describe what actually does occur when a star takes its final, dying breath.

"Our diversity, now, bodes well for the future."

Howie also shows great interest in extending the study of astronomy to others. He thinks that people of different gender, race, and ethnic backgrounds offer different approaches in the study of astronomy. The work of women, African-Americans, and Hispanic Americans, he says, will greatly enrich the study of astronomy. He hopes, also, for the general public to share his awe for the universe. While meeting with his Austin teachers, he tries to impart unto them that physics and astronomy don't have to be difficult, that the world we live in is a laboratory where experiments help us to learn new and exciting facts about our universe. This opportunity is a tremendously powerful gift to us.

"These days, I'd just as soon run a triathlon."

Presently, Howie works hard to be a dad for his two children, Max and Monica. He only occasionally sails, but Howie has recently become interested in triathlons. Since youth, Howie has been quite an athlete; biking, running, and swimming have always been fun for him, so the triathlon is an obvious endeavor. In addition, Howie had an impressive finishing time of 4:23 in his first marathon (26.2 miles).

G. Howard Marion
Research Associate, Harvard Center for Astrophysics
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, University of Chicago

UT astronomer and professor Harriet Dinerstein grew up in the middle of New York City. The light pollution of this vast city made it impossible to see the stars at night. However, Harriet was inspired by her visits to the world-renowned Hayden Planetarium, now replaced by the Rose Center for Earth and Space Science.

While in high school, she participated in a National Science Foundation-sponsored program at the Hayden Planetarium. This program introduced Harriet to astronomy as a science, enabled her to meet real live astronomers, and cemented her love of the subject. It was 1969, the summer of the first moonwalk.

Continuing with her astronomical interests, she received her undergraduate degree from Yale University, and then attended graduate school at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the home of Lick Observatory. Her dissertation work involved combining observations from two different spectral regimes, infrared and optical; today, this kind of "multi-wavelength" astronomy is widely used to study all kinds of astronomical objects and problems.

Harriet's first postdoctoral position was as a National Research Council fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center in California, which at that time was home base for the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a flying telescope that was the forerunner of SOFIA , the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy that is currently being built.

Harriet Dinerstein first came to the University of Texas in 1982 as a Robert A. Welch Foundation postdoctoral fellow, and joined the University's faculty in 1985. Since then, she has done research on star formation, extragalactic ionized nebulae, classical novae, supernova remnants, and most of all, planetary nebulae.

Harriet has been awarded two of the major research prizes of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) the Annie Jump Cannon Award in 1984 (awarded jointly by the AAS and the American Association of University Women, AAUW) and the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in 1989. She has also taught a dozen different courses at UT and won two Teaching Excellence awards.

Her husband, Dan Lester, is a Research Scientist working for McDonald Observatory, with an office right down the hall from hers. They have two daughters, Amanda and Jenna, who are both fanatical soccer players.

In her free time, Harriet relaxes with the Austin Balkan Singers, a group of women that perform folk music from such places as Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Croatia.

Harriet Dinerstein
Professor of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of California at Santa Cruz
B.S., Astronomy and Physics, Yale University

While most people tend to see astronomy as a romantic and intellectual endeavor, Phil Kelton, Acting Superintendent of McDonald Observatory, is very aware of the nitty gritty parts of running an observatory. In fact, that's the main part of his job. An observatory, like any other organization or business, has to be financially functional and efficient in operation. Unlike other astronomers, who receive time on the telescopes to study the skies, Phil receives time to help maintain and upgrade the equipment. "Day to day, there is a routine aspect to running an observatory," he reflects, "and the end result is to produce telescopes and instruments that are effective at doing research."

"I do a little of everything."

Phil is a man of many interests. He enjoys sports (especially basketball) hiking, amateur astronomy, chess, computer science, wine tasting, duplicate bridge, traveling, and all kinds of music. "I do a little of everything," he says. Many of these hobbies stemmed from interests that developed during his childhood in Texas and Nebraska. He started stargazing when he was 14 years old and had a few small telescopes. He also enjoyed playing chess in his sixth grade class. "We got time out from class to sit and play chess," he remembers, "and we used to do chess tournaments every week."

"A cat called Cat."

When he's not working at the office or at the Observatory, Phil likes to spend time at home with his wife, who teaches French at The University of Texas. Also in the household is a cat, called Cat, that was a childhood pet for his three grown children - Erica, Kevin, and Christina.

"Astronomy is fun!"

Phil came to astronomy in a very roundabout way. He started out studying physics at the University of Nebraska and received a bachelor's degree in the subject. He then got a master's degree in computer science. Finally, he came to The University of Texas to work toward a doctorate. Rather than focus solely on computers, though, he decided to put his knowledge to use in astronomy. "I just sort of shifted into astronomy and started working for McDonald Observatory," he says. He worked on real-time computing and instrumentation for astronomy for his Ph.D. "Astronomy is just fun!" he says. "I like telescopes and the sky and everything about astronomy."

Phil Kelton
Acting Superintendent of McDonald Observatory
Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Studies; University of Texas
M.S., Computer Science; University of Nebraska
B.S., Physics; University of Nebraska

When Judit Gyorgyey Ries was in the 6th grade in Hungary, she read a book about astronomy whose title is roughly translated as Tales of the Moon. It was this book that made her "totally fall in love with astronomy." Once she was hooked, she charted a course for her future that allowed her to study her new favorite subject.

She received her Masters degree in Physics Education and Astronomy from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. When she was 25 years old, she came to the University of Texas where she earned a Masters degree in aerospace engineering, and later a Ph.D. in astronomy. She is currently a Research Engineer/Science Associate in the astronomy department at the University of Texas.

"The word ‘deductable'"
Judit came to Texas from Hungary, where she grew up. While she did speak English when she arrived here, there were still many new words and cultural nuances that she had to get used to. "Funny things like the word ‘deductable' didn't mean anything to me," she says, "because it was a totally different system." She adjusted quickly, however, and later married an American and settled in Austin. Her husband is an aerospace engineer at UT.

"When you turn, those skirts fly!"
Upon arriving in the United States, Judit found out about a Hungarian dance group that needed a translator for the non-English speaking instructor. She volunteered to help, and has been involved with Hungarian folk dancing ever since. The group Judit performs with, which includes people of Hungarian, Japanese, Taiwanese, American, and Belgian descent, has been invited to dance at international dance festivals in the United States and in Hungary. The dancers' costumes are all specially made. The dresses that Judit and the other women get to wear have very full skirts and petticoats so that "when you turn, those skirts fly!" It's an aerobic activity that's very enjoyable for all involved, she says.

"You need to catch it again."
In her astronomical work, Judit studies Near Earth Asteroids. She spends her time at the telescope looking for new asteroids and following up on new observations from other observatories. If a new object is found, it is very important to observe it again soon. "You need to catch it again close to the discovery," she says, so that astronomers can calculate its precise orbit. Staying up late at the telescope has never been a problem for Judit, who is a self-described night-owl. She loves to stargaze at McDonald Observatory, and she has even seen the Aurora Borealis from there. (It is unusual to see these so-called "Northern Lights" from such a far southern location.) An added bonus to Judit's work is that she's helping to keep the Earth safe from asteroid impacts. Whether she is watching the skies with a telescope or with her eyes, it is clear that Judit's passion for astronomy has provided her with a lifelong career that's perfect for her.

Judit Gyorgyey Ries
Research Engineer/Science Associate, University of Texas
Ph.D., Astronomy; University of Texas
M.E., Aerospace Engineering; University of Texas
M.S., Astronomy, Physics Education; Eotvos Lorand University,
Budapest, Hungary

Eric Hooper grew up in California. He attended elementary and junior high school in Los Angeles and high school in the Mojave desert, where the kids "went a little stir-crazy." Eric's father worked for the United States Navy and, among other things, designed ejection systems for their elite force of fighter jets. His mother spent a career in education, teaching first deaf students and then later giving one-on-one instruction to some of the more dangerous teenagers in Los Angeles.

After graduating from high school, Eric went to the cold environs of Michigan State University where he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree. Then, he traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to the tiny island that houses what he calls our "mother culture," Great Britain. Working with the distinguished astronomer Michael Penston of Cambridge University, Eric earned his master's degree there and left the gray skies of England for the sunny mountainsides of Arizona. At the University of Arizona, Eric earned his doctorate in astronomy.

"I love Brits and have worked with mostly Brits since then."

From the University of Arizona, Eric moved to Boston to work at Harvard's Center for Astrophysics. While there, he worked for Dr. Belinda Wilkes, a native Brit. "I love Brits," says Eric, "and have worked with mostly Brits since [living in England]." Indeed, he has worked with almost a half-dozen British-born astronomers and continued to do so while a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas.

"It leverages my efforts."

Eric maintains a longstanding interest in education and outreach to the public. As part of an NSF Fellowship, he worked in the University of Texas' UTeach program for training the next generation of secondary science teachers. Eric finds it a stimulating and valuable program, "since it leverages my efforts, gives me a chance to work with students both in and out of astronomy, and I have a whole new set of friends and colleagues, including master teachers." He also continues to work at the Astronomy Camp in Arizona, a program to which he has contributed since early in graduate school.

"Basically, whatever I can find time to do."

In his free time, Eric has many interests. He enjoys reading, and his favorite authors include Shakespeare and Poe. He also enjoys reading science fiction novels, historical non-fiction, and other works of classical literature. Eric is interested in growing things as well. His garden includes lots of peppers, herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, and broccoli. Eric is an avid downhill skier and enjoys friendly games of volleyball.

Eric Hooper
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Arizona
M.Phil., Physics, Cambridge University
B.S., Astrophysics & Mathematics, Michigan State University

The best part of astronomy for Research Scientist Michael Endl is the "excitement of discovery," he says. Mike uses his time at McDonald Observatory to search for extrasolar planets, that is, planets around other stars. He says that nothing he has seen recently can compare to the moment in his student days when he discovered his first extrasolar planet. While working with another student at an observatory in South America, Mike says they looked on a computer screen at the signal from a star, and their jaws dropped. "We actually found a planet!" he recalls. And for a short time, they reveled in the knowledge that they were "the only guys on Earth who knew that there is a giant planet orbiting that star!" This, Michael says, is the greatest reward of doing astronomy. "It's the incredible feeling," he insists, "to have found something totally and completely new."

"I was an avid amateur astronomer."
Michael has always been a loyal astronomy enthusiast, even as a child in Vienna, Austria. At age 10, he built his own refracting telescope. However, it was not always obvious that he was destined to become a professional astronomer, especially towards the end of his high school career. "I became a computer nerd," he laughs, "but I really didn't like it." So much so, in fact, that after starting out with a job working on computers, he decided to attend the University of Vienna to study physics and astronomy. Later, he was able to spend two years studying in Chile before finally receiving his Ph.D. He came to the University of Texas as a post-doctoral fellow to look for extrasolar planets after finishing his degree in Vienna.

"It might have been ugly if I had really fallen in."
As a native Austrian, Mike is very familiar with big mountains. "I love mountain climbing," he says, "especially in the Himalayas and the Andes." The highest mountain Mike has ever climbed is called Aconcagua in the Andes. The peak rises almost 7000 meters (23,000 feet) into the air, and while there is an easy path to the summit, Michael and his partner chose to scale a more difficult ice route instead. "Up near the summit, I broke into a crevasse," he recalls. "It was funny because I saw it, but it was bigger than I thought." Michael pulled himself out on the other side and warned his partner about it. Because of the very thin air at that altitude, even jumping over the small gap was a true feat. "We had to laugh," he says, recalling the several minutes they had to spend panting and recovering from this mini-adventure. "But it might have been ugly if I had really fallen in."

"I think it's too early to tell."
Like his ability to work on different continents and climb in varied environments, Mike's opinions about life elsewhere in the universe are quite flexible. He certainly thinks that such life exists, but whether it is simply single-celled bacteria or beings that are intelligent remains to be seen. "I think it's too early to tell," he says, adding that new technology might shed more light on the subject. Better telescopes that will become available to astronomers within the next 20 years should allow them to find Earth-sized planets, and possibly even signs of primitive life. Michael, however, asserts that he "has an open mind." He is ready for anything.

Michael Endl
Research Scientist, University of Texas
Ph.D., Astronomy; University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Imagine holding your breath for six minutes while dropping in over 50 meters of water. At 30 meters, all light from the surface is gone; at 45 meters, your lungs begin to fill with fluids. You reach the bottom and turn for the ascent to life-giving air. Now, your heart rate has dropped to 25 beats per minutes, about one-third that of an average person, and you look enviously towards your safety diving partner equipped with SCUBA gear. As you come up, the pressure of the water gradually decreases, the temperature is noticeably warmer, and you can feel your lungs expanding again. A fish passes by your face; you recognize that the light is returning and then see the bottom of your boat. Finally, you break the surface of the water and gulp great breaths of air.

"Freediving has always been an interest."

For Joe Tufts, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas and nationally competitive freediver, this endeavor is not imagined. "Freediving has always been an interest," he says, but, in the past year, he has begun to hone his skills and compete for a position on the U.S. Freediving team.

"About one piece every two years."

Apart from his athletic hobbies, Joe enjoys building furniture ---"About one piece every two years," he jokes--- and finds the upkeep of his home in Austin, Texas to be an almost full-time job. With his wife, Heather, Joe cares for Geiger, a greyhound racing dog he rescued from death after Geiger was no longer able to race. They also act as a foster home to other dogs that are awaiting permanent owners.

"Yes, I am an Aggie."

"Like most astronomers, I don't know when I decided to be an astronomer," says Joe, but as a young student, he showed great interest in learning about the stars and actually constructed a telescope in high school. Later, as an undergraduate physics major at Texas A&M University, he worked diligently to design the control system for another telescope. He used this telescope to film the impact of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 onto the surface of Jupiter in 1994.

"It is satisfying to build something and then use it."

Joe spends much of his time working on the Hobby Eberly Telescope. He has played an integral role in building the Low Resolution Spectrograph and on the calibration system currently used by HET observers. While he finds it gratifying to use instruments that he has made, he finds it far more satisfying to see another astronomer use his instruments to learn something new.

Joe Tufts
Post-doctoral fellow, Los Cumbres Observatory
Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, Texas A & M University

Earle Luck earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia and then pursued his doctoral degree at the University of Texas, Austin under the advisement of David Lambert. While at UT, Earle learned the intricacies of stellar spectroscopy, skills that he has honed over recent decades. Following graduation, he worked at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge) as a research assistant professor, then moved to Cleveland Ohio, where he rose to his current position of professor of both astronomy and physics at Case Western Reserve University.

Earle became interested in astronomy as a young seventh grader. His teacher gave him an assignment to learn about astronomy and, Earle says, "It piqued my interest." Indeed, since this thirteen-year old boy's revelation that we can learn about and not just wish upon the stars, astronomy has intrigued him in many ways. "It's what we're constantly thinking about," he says. Problems are constantly before him, even "on vacation," and he finds it difficult to divide himself into categories where astronomy only fills one slot.

R. Earle Luck
Warner Professor of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University
Professor of Physics, Case Western Reserve University
Ph.D., Astronomy; University of Texas, Austin, Texas
B.S., Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia

Texas A&M astronomer Jennifer Marshall leads a group of scientists that build astronomical instruments at Texas A&M's Munnerlyn Laboratory. She is leading the effort to build a revolutionary spectrograph called VIRUS that will enable the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment.

Jennifer's interest in astronomy began in high school. "I took an astronomy class in high school which sparked my interest in the history of astronomy and observational astronomy. My high school astronomy teacher, Mr. Camosy, was a really good teacher. He taught us about the history of astronomy and also about how to be a good amateur astronomer."

She completed her undergraduate degree at Northwestern University where she began do astronomical research. "I ended up working for Dr. Giles Novak, with whom I built an instrument that I used to calibrate a submillimeter polarimeter at the South Pole."

Astronomers do a lot more than just look at stars, she says: "There is a lot of travel involved in being an astronomer: trips to the observatory, to meetings, to discuss projects with collaborators. I have been to every continent and to many observatories all over the world. I enjoy being able to experience different cultures while traveling, especially the food. Astronomers also write a lot: we write scientific papers, observing proposals, and all kinds of reports."

When Jennifer is observing she doesn't use coffee to stay up all night. Her secret is knitting socks! "I don't drink caffeine, so I have to keep busy to stay awake. I like to knit—it's hard to fall asleep while your hands are busy, but it's mindless enough to allow me to think about what to do with the telescope."

Jennifer Marshall
Texas A&M University, Research Scientist
The Ohio State University, Ph.D., Astronomy
The Ohio State University, M.S., Astronomy
Northwestern University, B.A., Physics and Integrated Science

Jocelyn Tomkin, Research Fellow at The University of Texas, has always been fascinated with astronomy. Even as a child, he enjoyed stargazing with his small refracting telescope. Little did he know, as he looked through the telescope in his backyard, that he would grow up to be a professional astronomer. "I didn't know I actually wanted to be an astronomer," he says. "I didn't decide that until I was in my last year of college."

"We immigrated to Tasmania"
Jocelyn spent the years leading up to that important decision traveling with his family all over the globe. He was born in his parents' native England and lived there until he was six years old. The family then immigrated to Tasmania, where his father took up sheep farming. Unfortunately, Jocelyn's mother missed the comforts of home. "She wanted a social life like she was used to back home in England," he says. After two years in Tasmania, the family moved to Ireland, where Jocelyn stayed until he graduated from college.

"Carved in stone like the Ten Commandments"
While in college at Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland, Jocelyn was lucky enough to in a math class taught by his favorite instructor, Mr. Graham. Jocelyn remembers him as being informal, but also very instructive because he knew the subject well. Mr. Graham helped Jocelyn see math in a whole new way, he says. "I was able to think about math in more relaxed terms," he remembers, "rather than thinking that things were carved in stone like the Ten Commandments."

"The only person who knows that stuff"
While finishing his college degree in physics, Jocelyn decided that he wanted to do astronomical research. He went to the University of Sussex in England to earn his Ph.D. in astronomy, and he subsequently took up a position doing research at The University of Texas. For him, the best part about studying astronomy is the thrilling idea that it's possible to know or discover something completely new. "Sometimes you determine a very small piece of knowledge," he says. "Until you publish it, you are the only person who knows that stuff."

Jocelyn Tomkin
Research Fellow, University of Texas
Ph.D., Astronomy; University of Sussex, Sussex, England
B.Sc. Physics, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Ever think about who is your model astronomer? How about a person who likes music, is in awe of old cathedrals, and first became interested in astronomy while having his appendix removed? Well, Gary Hill, a senior research scientist and Chief Astronomer for McDonald Observatory, is all of these things and more.

"Don't do biology."

Gary was born in Leeds, in northern England, the son to an architect and dress designer. As a child, his interests included model airplanes, marine biology, and ornithology, the study of birds. He attended a large new Comprehensive School, where, as Gary says, he "benefitted from many very eager teachers before they got beaten down by the system."

On a field trip to Oxford University, young Gary spoke with a marine biologist there about his interests in her area of study. However, she quickly warned Gary, "Don't do biology." She advised Gary that the study of physics and mathematics would prepare him for work in other areas, even marine biology. As he took physics classes the next year, Gary found that he had quite a knack for solving the problems put forth in physics. In fact, he found that these problems were even fun to solve.

While having his appendix removed.

As a young teenager, Gary had his appendix removed, and, while in the hospital, he began reading a book on astronomy by Isaac Asimov. Gary learned that his skills in physics could be applied to learn more about phenomena in astronomy. Especially, he was interested in the properties of neutron stars. This newly found fascination solidified Gary's plans to study physics as an undergraduate student.

A young but courageous student.

As a student in his second year at Oxford University, Gary sent letters to observatories around the world, requesting summer positions. After receiving offers from observatories in Green Bank, West Virginia, and New Zealand, Gary decided to go to Steward Observatory in Arizona. While at Steward, Gary discovered that he enjoyed working with astronomical instruments and decided that he needed to attend graduate school in the United States to pursue this interest. He graduated from Oxford in 1983 and left for The University of Hawaii.

"Through our mutual interest in music."

As a graduate student, Gary was disappointed because there were no opportunities to work on astronomical instrumentation. However, he did gain valuable experience in cosmology, the study of the properties and evolution of the universe as a whole. Also, while at The University of Hawaii, he met his wife, Yoshie Hasumi, through their mutual interest in music. After graduating in 1988, Gary and Yoshie moved to Austin, Texas.

"Do what you can with it."

Gary came to The University of Texas as The McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow, a prestigious research position, but, says Gary, "The instrumentation was too inefficient to do any of the projects I wanted to do." This prompted Gary to build his first instrument, the Imaging Grism Instrument (IGI).

At the time, IGI was supposed to be a short-term instrument. Basically, Gary says, he was told, "Here's 5,000 bucks. Do what you can with it." However, IGI is now one of the more heavily used instruments at McDonald even though it is more than a decade old. Subsequently, Gary led the team which built an instrument for The Hobby-Eberly Telescope -- the Low Resolution Spectrograph.

Music, architecture, and travel.

In his spare time, Gary enjoys the diverse live music scene in Austin. Gary also enjoys traveling around Europe and Japan. In particular, he has an appreciation for the cathedrals, temples, and mosques constructed many centuries ago. "The ability of people to build these enormous structures without any formal training in engineering is amazing," he says. When he's not building instruments, studying cosmology, catching a band, or traveling around the world, Gary finds that working on his house in Austin is "a full-time job."

Gary Hill
Senior Research Scientist, Chief Astronomer, McDonald Observatory
Ph.D, University of Hawaii
M.S., Oxford University
B.A., Oxford University

Julia Silge, astronomy graduate student at The University of Texas, has always had a love for reading, literature, and language. As a child in Fort Worth, Texas, she remembers choosing to focus on reading rather that science and math, and she even wanted to be a writer when she grew up. "I did a lot of independent reading," she recalls. "I wasn't really into science very much." In fact, her third grade teacher allowed her to pursue her own independent project for reading and writing. "I looked at different books from different time periods," she says. "I was not very interested in science as a little girl."

"It was definitely what I wanted to do!"
Having studied several foreign languages, while in high school she considered working in linguistics or translation. By the time she entered college, though, physics had sparked her interest, especially the physics of light and optics. "I started looking into astronomy and thought it was really cool! It was definitely what I wanted to do!" she says. After graduating from Texas A&M University, she came to The University of Texas to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy.

The surprise of a lifetime
One night, while observing at the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope, Julia got the surprise of her life. Unknown to her, her boyfriend Robert had driven to McDonald Observatory to ask her a very special question. He sneaked up to the catwalk of the telescope building and waited for her. "I was walking around the catwalk, and I heard his voice," she says. "He told me he loved me and that he wanted to marry me! It was very romantic."

Now newly married, Julia spends half of her time in Austin at her office and the other half working from home in Irving, Texas where Robert is a medical student. While at home, Julia enjoys reading, sewing, and growing herbs. The couple also hopes to adopt a dog in the summer. "Up in Irving we have a condo that has a little backyard," she explains, "and we are interested in getting a retired racing greyhound."

Asking the important questions
For Julia, the best part about studying astronomy is its fundamental nature. "Astronomy gets to ask the important questions," she says. "It gets to ask questions about where we are and what the physical world is like. I get to spend my days studying something that is really fundamental and really getting at why things are the way they are." As for life on other planets, Julia doesn't think it's likely. "I'm not necessarily sure, but I would say there's probably not life elsewhere in the universe," she says. "The biggest reward for me is getting to study something that is really worthwhile."

Julia Silge
Graduate Student, University of Texas
M.A., Astronomy; University of Texas
B.S., Physics; Texas A&M University

Mike Fanelli's research interests include evolution of galaxies and their stars - and he looks for patterns in the formation of massive stars, both in three-dimensional space and over time. He has observed with telescopes at McDonald Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, and with the Hubble Space Telescope. He is also a member of the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope science team.

Mike used McDonald Observatory telescopes for his research during his appointment as assistant professor at University of North Texas and research scientist at Texas Christian University. He has now moved to working on the NASA Kepler program.

Mike Fanelli
Support Scientist, Kepler Mission
Ph.D., astronomy, University of Virginia

Bacham Reddy is an astronomer at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore. In 2003, he finished up a postdoctoral fellowship at The University of Texas. Bacham works closely with Texas astronomer David Lambert in observing the spectra of stars within our galaxy.

Bacham grew up in India and received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore. Then, he worked as a researcher at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. From there, he moved to Austin and the University of Texas, where he was an avid user of the Coudé spectrometer on the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory.

Bacham Reddy
Astronomer, Indian Institute of Astrophysics
Ph.D., Astronomy, Indian Institute of Astrophysics

If faculty member Karl Gebhardt wasn't an astronomer at the University of Texas, he would want to be a construction worker. In fact, he worked in construction while he was in graduate school, landscaping and building houses. What's the appeal? "You get to drive really big trucks!" he grins. Currently, this Associate Professor of Astronomy still likes to spend his free time working on his house and gardening. "We grow a lot of flowers and vegetables," he says. "Texas is a good place for that."

"Tossing a lot of good books at me" Karl grew up in Rochester, New York, where his mother worked as a hospital administrator. During his grade school years, his favorite teacher was Mrs. Tomoanovich who taught 11th grade English. "I appreciated her," he remembers, "for tossing a lot of good books at me." Among other works, the class read books by Herman Hess and Absalom, Absalom! and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. "She had a good style of teaching, and the books had a big impact," he says.

"One person can make an difference." Although he started out studying physics in graduate school, Karl was drawn to astronomy in part because of its personal nature. While research in physics often involves hundreds of scientists working together on the same project, Karl saw astronomy "as a way where one person can make an difference." What's more, compared to the many people who work in physics, the astronomy community is rather small. As Karl says, "It's a small enough group in astronomy that you tend to know most of the people, and they're spread throughout the world. So pretty much anywhere you go in the world, there's someone you know and have interacted with. Astronomers tend to be pretty nice people so that works out quite well."

"A common misconception" Like a growing number of professional astronomers, Karl rarely sees a telescope anymore. Most of the telescopes he uses, such as the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, are queue scheduled. Instead of having to be present at the telescope to make his observations, Karl simply waits for the telescope staff to make the observations for him. Data collected on his behalf are usually transmitted to him electronically, so he never even has to leave his office. The idea that he's spending nights in a telescope dome is, as he says, a "common misconception." "People think it's weird," he says, "but it's pretty typical."

Karl Gebhardt, Herman and Joan Suit Professor in Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin

Ph.D., Physics and Astronomy; Rutgers University

M.S., Physics and Astronomy; Michigan State University

B.S., Physics and Astronomy; University of Rochester

Paul Harvey grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with two younger brothers. His dad was a mechanical engineer, and his mom was a draftswoman. From a young age, he was interested in science. "Been in physics and astronomy since elementary school," says Paul, who, in junior high, built his own telescope. Today, he continues to build instruments for telescopes both on the ground and in the air. In particular, he has constructed spectrographs for use at McDonald Observatory and at observatories on Hawaii's Mauna Kea.

Connecticut, California, Arizona, and Texas.

Paul attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, for his undergraduate degree in physics. From Connecticut to California, Paul traveled to continue his studies in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned his Ph.D. from Caltech in physics, but his dissertation focused on astronomical observing and instrumentation. Paul then worked at the University of Arizona for seven years as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a research scientist. After his work in Tucson, Paul came to Austin, Texas, where he was a professor of astronomy before switching to a full time research career.

Interests in astronomy.

Paul's interests in astronomy center around instruments that work in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Some of these are part of space missions, such as Spitzer Space Telescope and Hershchel. For the Spitzer, Paul was a leading co-investigator in a major project to observe star-forming regions. He is a scientific advisor or mission scientist for the Herschel Observatory. In the past, Paul has worked with the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, an airplane that was equipped with an infrared telescope.

"Our climbing party became a rescue party."

Paul enjoys rock climbing and downhill skiing. In a trip to Mount Rainier, an active, snow-encased volcano in Washington, Paul and some friends were climbing the 4,000 meter peak when two of their group fell into a crevasse and the "climbing party became a rescue party." Certainly, Paul's dedication and endurance as an athlete render him more capable in astronomy, allowing him to be more patient in building intricate instruments and productive during long nights at observing at McDonald Observatory.

Paul Harvey
Senior Research Fellow, University of Texas at Austin
Senior Research Scientist, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D. Physics, California Institute of Technology
B. S. Physics, Wesleyan University

Fritz Benedict, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Texas, loves to sail. "I've got a Catalina 22 on Lake Travis," he says, "and I get to go too darn few times." When he's not sailing, he likes to spend time with his wife Ann and their dog Darcy. "Darcy is a cross between a Dalmatian and a Basset Hound," he says, "and there's been much discussion about how that could possibly occur."

"I was lucky." While Fritz claims that he is "still in the process of growing up," his childhood years were spent in a variety of places. He was born in Northern California, and shortly thereafter his family moved to Saudi Arabia. For high school, he attended an American school in Beirut, Lebanon. "I was lucky," he remembers, referring to the fact that he could attend high school relatively close to his family's home in Saudi Arabia. "Lebanon was still a civilized place when I was in high school."

"Something snapped in my brain." Even as a child, Fritz knew where his future career lay. As he says, "When I was eight, something snapped in my brain and I decided I wanted to be an astronomer." In fact, that conviction is what got him through college. "College was a whole lot of fun," he remembers. "In my junior year, I had to decide whether I was going to continue to have a whole lot of fun or do some work and get a degree. But there was that promise I made myself, so I chose the astronomy."

"Kids playing in the sandbox" True to his personality, Fritz views the field of astronomy with good natured enthusiasm. He enjoys the process of astronomy – everything from observing at the telescope to getting an answer to a scientific question. And when it comes to collaborations with other scientists, Fritz has a mental picture in mind. "I equate doing astronomy to kids playing in the sandbox. You have certain kids that you like to play with and other kids that you don't. If you can find the kids you like to play with in the sandbox, it's golden. There's nothing you can't do."

Fritz Benedict, Senior Research Scientist, University of Texas at Austin

Ph.D., Astronomy, Northwestern University

M.S., Astronomy, Northwestern University

B.S., Physics and Astronomy, University of Michigan

"I can remember the exact moment when I became interested in astronomy," says astronomer Chris Sneden, professor at The University of Texas. He was at his home in Pennsylvania, listening to a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game on the radio. During the commercial break, he heard an advertisement for Saturday morning astronomy classes at the Pittsburgh planetarium. Since then, he says he "never, ever wanted to do a single thing other than astronomy. There was never a Plan B."

"They gave me much encouragement."

Chris attributes much of his success to his parents, Harold and Alice Sneden, who encouraged him to pursue his interest in astronomy. "They knew I was so pigheaded that I wasn't going to be stopped anyway," says Chris. "They gave me much encouragement."

"The very next college on the list was Haverford."

As graduation from his small, mill-town high school loomed, Chris visited his career counselor and inquired about studying astronomy in college. "I don't know anything about that," his counselor said, and gave Chris a book with colleges sorted by academic major. Chris quickly turned to the astronomy section and scanned down the list. "I got to Harvard and said, 'Ahh, I can't get into Harvard.' The very next college on the list was Haverford."

"This decision turned out to be a very good one."

Haverford College is a small Quaker college in Pennsylvania, the oldest institution of higher learning in North America. Today, it's a leading liberal arts college. "This decision turned out to be a very good one," Chris says. While there, he studied astronomy and received his Bachelor's degree in 1969.

Deep in the heart of Texas.

Chris then traveled south to Texas where he worked as a graduate student for astronomer David Lambert who was, then, a fresh new faculty member at The University of Texas. Chris was David's first graduate student and he says that "two or three people after me said that they paid for my sins. He made them work a lot harder." However, Chris obviously worked hard because he left Texas for a string of prestigious positions.

Indiana, California, Wyoming, and Washington

He went to Indiana as a postdoctoral researcher for a year and, then, to Santa Cruz, California as a research astronomer and lecturer. For three years, he worked at the University of Wyoming's infrared observatory where he was an assistant professor. Finally, he worked as an assistant professor at The University of Washington before returning to The University of Texas.

The Town Crier

Chris now holds the Rex G. Baker, Jr. Centennial Research Professorship in Astronomy and, recently, led this astronomy department as its chairman. (The current chairman is his former advisor, David Lambert.) Chris is also the editor of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a special publication of the Astrophysical Journal that features new and exciting discoveries. Effectively, he is a "town crier" for the astronomical community, making important announcements to eager astronomers.

Encouraging his children.

Chris has been married over 20 years to Gail Sneden and has four children: Alan, Lisa, Brett, and Jeff. Alan is a medical doctor. Lisa holds a Ph.D. in criminal psychology, and Brett is preparing to be a pilot. Finally, Jeff, the youngest, recently graduated from The University of Texas with a degree in computer science.

"Anything with a ball and racquet."

In his free time, Chris enjoys playing tennis with his wife and friends. He also plays squash and racquetball -- "basically anything with a ball and racquet, anything to fool myself into thinking that I'm not exercising," he says.

Chris Sneden Rex G. Baker, Jr. Centennial Research Professor, University of Texas Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Texas B.A., Astronomy, Haverford College

Rob studied astronomy as an undergraduate at The University of Arizona. However, he had "more physics credits than any physics major that graduated that year. It wasn't astronomy instead of physics, it was astronomy in addition to physics," he says and stresses the importance of understanding the laws that govern our world.

Upon graduation, Rob came to The University of Texas at Austin where he received his Ph.D. in 1973 under the tutelage of Brian Warner, Ed Nather, and Paul vanden Bout. Afterwards, Rob was the Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of California at Santa Cruz for a year. He then returned to Texas as an assistant professor where he has since become the William B. Blakemore II Regents Professor in Astronomy.

Rob's research interests have been varied throughout his career. He has studied pulsating white dwarf stars, cataclysmic variable stars, and neutron stars. Currently, he is most interested in studying black holes in binary star systems. He says that studying these binary systems is the best method current to determine one of the fundamental attributes of a black hole -- its mass.

Edward L. Robinson
William B. Blakemore II Regents Professor of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
B.A., Astronomy, University of Arizona

Let us be frank with you. The image that you hold of astronomers -- that they are nerdy guys and gals who sometimes wear black socks with sandals -- is mostly true. However, occasionally, you find someone who breaks this mold, someone like Frank Cianciolo. Frank is the "Senior Program Coordinator" of the McDonald Observatory Visitors Center. Basically, he ensures that the people who visit this mecca for astronomy have everything that they need.

"That's not a reason to go into medicine."

Frank grew up in southern Ohio and, at an early age, became interested in astronomy. He often attended the planetarium in Cincinnati, and his parents gave him his very first telescope before he could drive. After high school, however, he was a pre-medicine student at The University of Dayton in Ohio. His father was a medical doctor, so certainly Frank felt some expectation to be one as well. "That's not a reason to go into medicine," Frank says.

After Dayton, Frank "fooled around for a while." For two years, he worked as a bartender. Then, he moved to Alaska for a summer where he worked on a fishing boat. "I don't really recommend it," says Frank about this occupation that is usually grueling and often dangerous.

"I just never knew that you could know much about it unless you were Einstein."

In 1984, Frank heard that Halley's comet would become visible in 1985 (and become very bright in 1986, as it passed Earth in its 76-year cycle). He wanted to see it, but he realized that he barely knew where the Big Dipper was in the sky. Disappointed in his lack of knowledge but determined to learn, he started to read books about the constellations, learned star charts, and became well versed in amateur astronomy. Frank muses, "I had always been interested in astronomy. I just never knew that you could know much about it unless you were Einstein."

"What the heck? I'm not doing anything."

A few years later, one of Frank's friends was visiting Texas A&M University. He said, "Hey, why don't you come with me. I hear UT has a good astronomy program," to which Frank replied, "What the heck? I'm not doing anything." One of the first people Frank met was Dr. Mary Kay Hemenway, who became his mentor. She counseled Frank in what he needed to do before coming to study astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin.

"I fell in love with the Observatory and Ft. Davis."

As an undergraduate student in his first year, Mary Kay approached Frank with the suggestion he apply for a summer internship at McDonald Observatory. She knew of Frank's experience in amateur astronomy and thought he might enjoy such an job. "I fell in love with the Observatory and Ft. Davis," says Frank of that summer, and, in the subsequent semesters, he would travel there again and again to stare at the heavens and share this awe with others.

In 1994, a full-time position opened up which Frank applied for and quickly accepted. Since then, over 10 years have passed and Frank has seen the Visitors Center morph into the pride of Texas where thousands of people visit every year. This is awfully gratifying to Frank who revels in knowing that, for many, the first time they look through a telescope is under his guidance.

Frank Cianciolo
Senior Program Coordinator, McDonald Observatory

Astronomy professor J. Craig Wheeler has never been a stranger to science. Even before he began to study astronomy, he was certainly influenced by his father's physics-related career. "My father followed various defense industry jobs," he says. "We lived in Boulder, Colorado when he was working on the first thermonuclear bomb."

Later, his family moved to Idaho to be close to a nuclear reactor testing station. "Idaho was an interesting environment," he says. "Very rural in some sense, but very scientific in another. It was a real cross cultural sort of thing, with potatoes and a nuclear reactor."

"I've just been immensely lucky."

Craig decided to study astronomy at just the right moment in time. Funding for science was at an all time high after World War II and the launch of Sputnik, and looking back, Craig realizes that he was, as he says, "riding that post-war wave." After receiving his doctorate at The University of Colorado, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology, and later was an assistant professor at Harvard University. "I can look back now and see that in many ways I was very, very fortunate," he says. "Caltech was a great place to be a postdoc. There were all sorts of science going on, and there was just this intellectual ferment in the air. I've just been immensely lucky. It was really a great boost to my career."

"One mind-bending idea after another."

One of the greatest perks to being an astronomer, according to Craig, is "getting to write ‘Astrophysicist' on my IRS tax return. ‘I am an astrophysicist.' That just gets me every time!" Craig also likes being an astronomer because he enjoys finding out about new ideas in the field. "I'm a new idea junkie," he says. "I feed on new ideas. Lots of fields have new ideas, but astronomy is just one mind-bending idea after another!"

"I'm just not an observer."

Unlike most astronomers, Craig is never at the telescope. "I only observed with a telescope one time," he remembers. "It was cloudy for three days. And that was the end of that. I'm just not an observer." Instead, Craig is a theorist, meaning that while he plans and uses telescope observations, he does not depend on them for his work. It is also helpful that he studies supernovae, which are very unpredictable. Because astronomers never know when one may happen, supernova observations are usually made by whichever astronomer happens to be at the telescope at the time.

The Krone Experiment

When he's not doing astronomy, Craig is probably writing about it! He has written a popular book: Cosmic Catastrophes: Supernovae, Gamma-Ray Bursts, and Adventures in Hyperspace; as well as a science fiction novel, The Krone Experiment. As luck would have it, Craig's son Rob is in the process of turning The Krone Experiment into a movie. And currently, Craig is in the process of writing a sequel called Krone Ascending. "If I weren't an astronomer, I'd probably be a writer of some kind," he says. "It's something I discovered too late to make it into a career, but I do enjoy writing."

Craig is a member of The University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He lives in Austin with his wife of 36 years. Their older son, Diek, is a neurobiologist at The University of Pittsburgh, and their younger son, Rob, is a filmmaker in Austin.

J. Craig Wheeler Samuel T. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin President, American Astronomical Society (2006-2008) Ph.D., Physics, The University of Colorado B.S., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"I got interested in astronomy during my studies of physics," Niv Drory says. "I had a strong interest for astronomy as a teenager, but when I started studying physics, I wasn't actually sure I would end up as a researcher in astronomy. I just happened to end up in astronomy."

"An international and interesting environment."

Now that he is a professional astronomer, it's not only a fascination with the subject matter that keeps Niv interested. "The most reward I get out of astronomy is being able to work in a very international and interesting environment," he says. "It's actually more of a reason for me than the science itself, because there are interesting jobs all over the place. It's the people."

"I have always loved music."

When he's not spending time at work in front of his office computer, Niv likes to play "all kinds of sports," he says. These include running, basketball, and volleyball, among others. He also likes to cook Mediterranean and Asian food, and he enjoys music. "I have always loved music," he says, "both listening to and playing music." He plays classical and rock guitar, and he usually listens to both classical and pop when he's out at McDonald Observatory. Niv also likes movies, "literature in general," and biology, which he says he finds fascinating.

An international background

Niv was born in Haifa, Israel, and he and his parents moved between Germany and Israel several times when he was younger. They finally settled in Münich, where Niv attended high school and later college and graduate school. After finishing his Ph.D., Niv came to Texas as a postdoctoral researcher with The University of Texas at Austin. Following that, Niv returned to Germany and is now with the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, near Munich.

Niv Drory
Astronomer, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Garching, Germany)
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Münich
M.S., Physics, University of Münich

John Lacy did not consider himself an amateur astronomer. He's always liked looking at the stars, and his father pointed out constellations to him when he was a boy, but it wasn't until a friend in high school convinced him to join the astronomy club that he became more interested in astronomy. That friend is now a professor of music composition.

When John teaches undergraduate courses, he occasionally runs into students with mental blocks about science. They claim they can't understand astronomy because they are not science majors. John uses his friend the music professor as an example to show those students that they can understand science.

"A matchmaker for zoo animals."

John was born in Gary, Indiana, but moved to Connecticut when he was in the ninth grade. He has two brothers and two sisters. One brother, Bob, is a biologist who works at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois. John describes his brother's work as, "a matchmaker for zoo animals." Bob studies the problems of breeding animals while in captivity, and often consults with biologists at other zoos.

"Ms. Kitty is still likely to toss her cookies."

Felines reign supreme in the Lacy household. John has three cats named Ms. Kitty, Tyler, and Eppie. Tyler was a stray that he found near Tyler, Texas. That location was the inspiration for the cat's name. Eppie is a recent newcomer, and the other cats are still adjusting. Tyler stays outside a lot, and according to John, "Ms. Kitty is still likely to toss her cookies when she sees her." Hopefully peace and harmony will soon prevail.

"It nearly knocked me over!"

John's favorite teacher was his tenth grade chemistry teacher, even though he can't remember the teacher's name. John has some very vivid memories of that class. During one laboratory experiment, he had to smell the contents of a test tube. Instead of gently wafting the odors to his nose, he inhaled the odor directly and, "it nearly knocked me over!" As in other high school chemistry classes, accidents were bound to happen. John recounts the time he accidentally dropped a still glowing match into a wastebasket and, "nearly burned down the school." The teacher didn't get too upset though, which is why John liked him!

"I'm pretty incoherent when I'm on that mountain."

As a graduate student, to complete the research needed for his dissertation, he built an instrument and used it to discover a black hole in the center of our galaxy. That success has led to a career designing, building, and using other instruments, including TEXES, the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrometer.

Many people may not realize how much engineering plays a role in astronomy. After all, someone has to design and build the instruments and telescopes that astronomers use. John and his team have used TEXES at McDonald Observatory and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii at 14,000 feet above sea level. It often takes John a couple of days to adjust to that higher altitude. In fact, John says that, "I'm pretty incoherent when I'm on that mountain."

John is an avid bicycler and has ridden a 75-mile loop in the Davis Mountains near McDonald Observatory. Someday he would like to bring his bike along and ride it from sea level to the summit of Mauna Kea. It is only a 40 mile ride, but it is all uphill!

John Lacy
Professor of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D.; Physics; University of California-Berkeley
S.B.; Physics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tom Barnes, Senior Research Scientist of McDonald Observatory, grew up in Ohio, but now considers his hometown to be Austin, Texas. His father was an auditor, and the family moved a lot to accommodate the elder Barnes' job. They moved 13 times before settling in Marion, Ohio, where Tom graduated from high school.

Tom's son Eric and his wife Kari are the parents of Tom's grandchildren, Logan and Trevor, who Tom says are "likely to be spoiled sons of a gun." Tom's other son JB and his wife Nichole had grandchild Mollie. Tom also has two stepdaughters, Jennifer and Jessica, and is married to Cyndee.

"Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee."

While some astronomers may like to focus the telescope on a single astronomical object for several hours, playing video games or listening to music to pass the time, "That's not my style of observing," Tom says. He says he might change targets and adjust his observations every 15 minutes. The key ingredient that keeps him awake while observing at night, he says, is "coffee. Lots and lots of coffee." He prefers Starbucks when he is at home in Austin, but straight, strong, black coffee gets the job done when he is at McDonald Observatory.

"If you can't communicate, you can't do this field."

The foundation in language Tom says he received from a favorite teacher helps him tremendously in his career. "Writing is extremely important, " he states. "If you can't communicate, you can't succeed in this field." He recalls that his high school English teacher, Mary Calhoun, often gave students just one word on the board and asked them to write an essay on that word during the class period.

"Raise money."

One thing that Tom thinks the general public doesn't realize about astronomers is how much time they have to spend to "raise money." According to him, a lot of money is required for each observing run to cover travel, lodging, and equipment. While some people may think all these expenditures are magically covered, the truth is that astronomers are constantly selling their projects to various funding organizations to raise money to do the research. The writing skills Tom learned from Ms. Calhoun often come into play when he is writing grants or proposals to get time on telescopes.

"It just came to me."

Tom says one of the memorable events of his career was a time when he was reading about some observations of a star that showed strange a magnitude change. The researchers couldn't explain what happened. Tom says that while reading this article, the reason "just came to me. I just knew it." He sat down, wrote a paper explaining the behavior, and made a prediction as to what the star might do in the future. Sure enough, another astronomer later confirmed his prediction.

Tom retired from McDonald Observatory in 2014 but remains active in his research.

Thomas G. Barnes III, Senior Research Scientist, McDonald Observatory
Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of Toronto
M.A., Astronomy, The University of Toronto
B.S. (with distinction) Astrophysics, The University of Rochester

Faith Vilas is a space scientist at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

At NASA, she pursues work in both observing astronomical phenomena and building her own instruments with which to observe.

Scientifically, she is interested in nearby objects like meteors, comets and asteroids, as well as distant objects like planets around stars other than the Sun. Currently, she studies asteroids with spectroscopy to learn their compositions and is interested in finding sources of near-earth asteroids.

Faith Vilas
Space Scientist, NASA Johnson Space Center
Ph. D., Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona

As a young child, Matt Shetrone loved to explore. He says he'd go hiking with his Boy Scout troop, marveling at archaeological finds. Later, he embarked on travels to Australia and Europe. Today, Matt has expanded his horizons to exploring extrasolar planets, massive galaxies, the early universe, and other phenomena. Truly, he is a Christopher Columbus of this era, forging into the darkest and least known areas of our world with the most cutting-edge tools available for today's explorers.

"See the broader world outside of science."

Matt is a Texan. He grew up in Dallas, attending W.T. White High School. He says there he was most impacted by his teacher Gale Cope. Matt says Ms. Cope pushed him "to see the broader world outside of science: theater, art, athletics, nature, and culture. She wanted all of her students to be well-rounded people and active community leaders." Her influence on Matt shines today as he loves to experience foreign cultures by traveling, backpacking the trails of Big Bend National Park, and run on the isolated trails surrounding McDonald Observatory.

Matt completed his undergraduate degree in astronomy here at The University of Texas at Austin. He then attended The University of California at Santa Cruz where he completed his Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics. From his experience with optical telescopes at McDonald Observatory as an undergraduate and at the Keck and Lick Observatories as a graduate student, Matt was hooked on optical astronomy. Ph.D. in hand, he went south of the equator to the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile.

"It was going to be a success."

By far, Matt says his most gratifying moment in his astronomical career occurred when was as a graduate student. He worked for a couple of years to simulate the production of a particular element in the nucleosynthesis that occurs within stars. The existence of this element in stars had been proposed but never observed. Finally, after a year of hard work, Matt was granted time on the three-meter telescope at Lick Observatory. On the first night, he had good weather and observed a spectrum of a star. Eureka! The spectrum showed that, as he predicted, this element was present in the star. "I knew at that moment that even though I would have two more long years of work to finish my thesis that it was going to be a success."

"Who could have a better job than me?"

Matt has returned to McDonald Observatory where he is the resident astronomer for the Hobby Eberly Telescope. He is in charge of running the night-to-night observations at the HET, collecting data for both himself and other astronomers. Regarding his job, he says, "In a single night I might start working on a search of planets around other stars, then work on finding the distance to nearby galaxies and end the night with looking for the most distant objects in our universe. Then I can walk home watching the sun rise over the beautiful Davis Mountains. Who could have a better job than mine?"

Matthew Shetrone
Research Scientist, McDonald Observatory
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of California at Santa Cruz
B.A., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin

The tunes of Judas Priest wafted from the 0.9-meter Telescope dome at McDonald Observatory while Gerald Handler observed pulsating stars. That's what he likes most about observing; he says he can "turn up the music really loud and just party away all night."

On this night, however, David Lambert was walking on the catwalk outside the dome of the nearby 2.7-meter Smith Telescope and heard this famous metal band rocking away. He called Gerald and threatened to "shine a torch (flashlight) into his telescope." Gerald, of course, complied and turned the volume down, but, fortunately, his enthusiasm for music is almost as infectious as his excitement about exploring the stars that he observes.

"Jupiter, Lord of the Sky"

Gerald was born in Mödling, Austria, a small town just south of Vienna. His father owned a "petrol station" and had hopes that Gerald would eventually take over the family business. Gerald had his doubts, but he enrolled in automobile engineering as a high school student to follow his father's wishes. "I was always interested in astronomy," says Gerald, but his devotion to the study of astronomy waned until his last two years of high school.

One night, while waiting for the bus, he noticed a bright object in the sky. Thinking it was possibly the star Sirius, he dug out all his old astronomy textbooks and ruled out Sirius as a possibility. He just couldn't figure out what this object was, so he spent weeks poring over astronomy charts and books. Finally, he realized that the object was moving in the sky and concluded it was none other than the "lord of the sky," Jupiter.

"He won't be of any harm."

Because he read about nothing but astronomy, Gerald almost failed his final year in his studies of automotive engineering. Fortunately, one teacher realized his aspirations and went to the head of exam commission and pleaded for Gerald to graduate. In defense of his inadequate skills as an auto mechanic, he said, "He won't be of any harm because he's going to be an astronomer anyway." Gerald laughs as he recollects this because, while he is excellent with numbers and studying the heavens, the cars of Austria would have been in dire straits had he become a mechanic.

"Peel a whole bag of onions without crying."

Gerald did graduate from high school and then studied astronomy at The University of Vienna. He received his undergraduate degree there and stayed on for his doctoral work. During his graduate career, he made a couple of detours. First, he enrolled in his mandatory civil service for Austria for which he worked in the kitchen of a refugee camp. "I learned how to chop potatoes and peel a whole bag of onions without crying." Gerald, also visited, for a couple of years, at The University of Texas at Austin where he became famous for enduring long months of observations on the 0.9-meter Telescope, over 200 nights in all.

"She was down there to fetch me."

Ph.D. fresh in hand, Gerald traveled to South Africa where he worked at the South African Astronomical Observatory as a postdoctoral researcher. He enjoyed the work there but pined somewhat to be back at home. In fact, his Austrian girlfriend moved to South Africa to be with Gerald; "basically, she was down there to fetch me," he says. A year later, they did return to Europe.

Gerald Handler
Postdoctoral Fellow, Copernicus Astronomical Center
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Vienna, Austria
B.S., Astronomy, University of Vienna, Austria

Twelve-year old Anita Cochran visited Brookhaven National Laboratory near her hometown of New York City. Although she had been encouraged to explore science by her father and several teachers, Anita remembers this visit as a pivotal point in her aspiration to be a scientist. She had become fascinated and enamored by the simple fact that people can look at the world and deduce some order. In contrast, she recalls her older brother's response to the same trip, "Oh, I remember that trip. It was the most boring thing ever." Anita sheepishly grins---"He's not a scientist."

"I was hooked."

Anita attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she satiated her desire to study the physical sciences. As an undergraduate student there, she focused on physics, but, fortunately, her advisor required that she take classes outside of the strict study of physics. "I didn't have any intention of going into astronomy," says Anita, but, after enrolling in an astronomy class, "I was hooked." Indeed, she would then move on to the land of "Hook em Horns," the University of Texas at Austin, which came in high regard with her Cornell mentor,Joe Veverka, because of the research environment and "lots of good biergartens."

"We went there bunches of times."

As a young graduate student, Anita was to begin under the advisement of Larry Trafton. Eager to work, Anita knocked on Larry's door in prospect of a project. He sent his new student to his postdoctoral researcher, Bill Cochran. Two weeks later, these two astronomers went together on a date. Where do astronomers go on their first date? Well, Bill and Anita enjoyed going to the Armadillo World Headquarters, a music hall in South Austin. In fact, "We went there bunches of times." Two years later, Bill and Anita were married and have recently celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Astronomer and Woman

As a graduate student during the 1970's, Anita found herself to be one of few women in the department. "Certain people were inhospitable at the time," remembers Anita, but the department, in general, has become more open to women. "In those days, it was a major event to get a new woman in the department, but, today, there are many more women in the program." Today, Anita says of the situation for women in astronomy, "It is really different."

"It was a very bad day."

During her tenure her as a researcher, Anita has spent many years studying bodies in our solar system. Mostly, she enjoys exploring comets, balls of ice and dust that orbit our Sun, but, occasionally, she likes to observe asteroids from the telescopes at McDonald and elsewhere. Anita has also been part of the CONTOUR mission (Comet Nucleus Tour) a space project that was intended to visit Comet 2P/Encke and study its makeup. Unfortunately, this space observatory was lost just one month after launch. "It was a very bad day," sighs Anita as she remembers hearing of the explosion.

"Chewy"

In their spare time, Anita and Bill enjoy many things together. The two are avid bicyclists and find a week incomplete without at least a few hours out on the road together. They often sponsor departmental participation in the many charitable rides and have even formed an impromptu team, Team Astro, whose motto reads, "Nuclear Powered, Stellar Performers." This couple also enjoy square dancing every Tuesday night with their fellow square dancers. Both have pursued this interest since 1984 and are considered advanced in their skill of this art. Further, the name of Anita's computer, Barolo (a region in Italy known for its wine) reflects her fancy for good wines. "Barolos tend to be really big, massive wines---chewy," says Anita. Finally, although she doesn't own a dog, Anita is a godmother to many of her friends' pets. She speaks fondly of Skye, a white Aussie; Sox, a friendly beagle; Honey Girl, a sweet terrier-like dog; and Sarah, a dog, dear to Anita, who just recently passed away.

Anita Cochran Research Scientist, Assistant Director, McDonald Observatory Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin B.A., Physics, Cornell University

"Tell them life is worthwhile when you come from a place like Nebraska," sings the state ballad for the Cornhusker State. Indeed Nebraska-native Seth Redfield's contentedness with life is obvious as he muses on the people and events that have passed through it. He speaks fondly of his fascination with music. Likewise, the songs of the heavens have caught his ear, so he now tries to untangle their tune as an astronomer.

Seth says he had always been interested in science, particularly in astronomy. In his last year of high school, he says his musical interests became more intense. So he decided to study both science and music in college, through joint program involving Tufts University and The New England Conservatory of Music, both in Boston.

At Tufts, Seth studied physics and astrophysics, while at the New England Conservatory, he majored in Theoretical Studies and focused on mastery of the oboe. "Musicians will spend hours and hours in the practice room. You can see that same behavior in scientists. That's what I liked about the double program," Seth says.

"Great opportunities"

In his second year of college, Seth worked in a research program for college students at the National Solar Observatory near Tucson. "I think these programs are great opportunities," he says. Through his work with Dr. Charles Lindsey, Seth says he discovered that he enjoyed working in the astronomy research community. In the next few years of his college career, Seth worked at Harvard's Center for Astrophysics and at the Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico.

"I decided that I would do astrophysics in grad school ... and I really enjoyed Boulder," Seth says. Fortunately, the university at Boulder not only has a world-class astrophysics program but also "anything you want to do out of doors," he says. Apart from his work on mapping the material within a few quadrillion miles (that's a thousand trillion miles) of our Sun, Seth says he also enjoyed backpacking, hiking, and playing ultimate frisbee with friends in Boulder.

In 2003, Seth came to the University of Texas at Austin as a Harlan J. Smith Postdoctoral Fellow. After that, he won a prized Hubble Fellowship from NASA and continued his research at UT-Austin.

Seth has recently left Austin to become an assistant professor of astronomy at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Seth Redfield
Assistant Professor, Astronomy, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Ph.D., Astrophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder
M.S., Astrophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder
B.M., Theoretical Studies, The New England Conservatory of Music
B.S., Physics & Astrophysics, Tufts University

In the search for the origins of stars and planets, there are few who can match the invested time, interest, and enthusiasm of astronomer Neal Evans.

His newest project will provide insight into the formation of low-mass stars and their accompanying planets, using data from NASA's newest Earth-orbiting observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer is sensitive to infrared light, and will be used to gather information on regions opaque to visible light. Neal works with a team of 50 scientists from around the globe on this project.

Life, Intelligence, and Technical Civilizations

Neal's interests, however, are not solely in stars and planets. He has long been intrigued by how life, intelligence, and even technical civilizations have come to be. Neal's interest in these subjects is in understanding how they became what they are today, whether that process might occur elsewhere, and how the outcome might differ. He frequently teaches a seminar that compares ideas about origins drawn from philosophy, religion, history, and science, exploring the different perspectives that each field of inquiry contributes.

Neal is particularly well suited for this seminar, which falls into an honors Liberal Arts degree program at The University of Texas, due to a long-standing interest he has in the study of English. This interest dates back to his years as an undergraduate at Berkeley. Before settling into physics, Neal considered pursuing a career in English, and has maintained a close affinity for the subject.

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in physics, Neal went on to receive his Ph.D. in 1973, and did a year and a half of post-doctoral work at Caltech. Although initially interested in high-energy and particle physics, he was dissuaded from entering these fields by the large groups of collaborators, often hundreds of researchers, that had begun to dominate many aspects of research in those fields. He became interested in astrophysics and worked with a research group started at Berkeley by Nobel laureate Charles Townes.

The journey outweighs the destination

Neal joined The University of Texas faculty in 1975, and has worked here since. In addition to his research and coordinating work for the Spitzer project, Neal teaches several astronomy courses at the University, including a class about the search for extraterrestrial life. As with his honors Liberal Arts seminar, one of his overarching goals in teaching these classes is to share his interest in how things have come to be – an interest that takes precedence over the facts of how things are. For Neal, and his students, the journey is more important than the destination.

Neal's personal life is as varied as his professional. He's an avid reader of both fiction and nonfiction, and has a particular interest in novels. He and his wife Leslie enjoy backpacking and hiking in the Sierras and Cascades of the west coast and in the Rocky Mountains. They hope to visit the Appalachian Trail some time in the near future.

Neal Evans

Edward Randall, Jr., M.D. Centennial Professor in Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin Astronomy

Ph.D., Physics, University of California, Berkeley

B.A., Physics, University of California, Berkeley

Mukremin Kilic grew up in a city outside Istanbul. After attending a math and science high school, he majored in physics at the Bogazici (Bosphorus) University. Following his graduate career at The University of Texas at Austin, he completed a Spitzer Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and another post-doctoral appointment at The Ohio State University. Mukremin does research on white dwarf stars.

Mukremin says his interest in astronomy began after viewing the 1999 total solar eclipse in Turkey. He enjoys the fact that his work brings him into intimate contact with the vastness of the universe, and the relative smallness of our Earth and its civilizations. He says it's the enormity of what lies around us that captured and holds his interest.

Mukremin's work probes not only the enormity of space, but also time. By studying white dwarfs -- the dead remains of stars like the Sun -- Mukremin and his fellow researchers are able to discern the ages of different parts of our galaxy.

Like a Stove

In essence, a white dwarf is like a hot stove; once the stove is off it decreases in temperature slowly over time. By measuring how cool the stove is, you can tell how long it's been since it was last on. Mukremin works to do precisely that. In understanding how different parts of the galaxy differ in age, we can better understand the processes by which it formed.

Mukremin says he enjoys playing informal soccer and basketball games with his friends. He also enjoys reading, and has an affinity for poetry, both romantic and modern. He listens to a great variety of music, but doesn't care for classical.

"I'm astonished at what we can do."

But most of his time is spent either on his work or in thinking about where we fit into the picture. "The universe is so big that I'm amazed with it. When I look at the galaxies in my images, I know that the Sun is only one of the billions of the stars in the galaxy, and I feel very small and weak. But at the same time, I'm astonished with what we can do with astronomy."

Mukremin, a spring 2006 PhD graduate at Texas, accepted the 2006 Columbus Prize Fellowship at Ohio State University to continue his research on white dwarf stars. He is currently the Spitzer Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Mukremin Kilic
Assistant Professor, Astronomy, University of Oklahoma
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, Bogazici University

Jody Wilson is senior research associate at the Imaging Science Team in The Center for Space Physics at Boston University. Her research involves imaging and numerical modeling of the atmospheres of solar system bodies, including the Moon, the planet Mercury, Jupiter's satellite Io , and comets.

Jody Wilson
Senior Research Associate, Boston University
Ph.D. in Astrophysical, Planetary, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Colorado
M.S. Planetary Science, University of Colorado, Boulder
B.S. Physics, Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus

The explorers of old forged into new lands and uncharted territories, pursuing conquests for their queens and kings and forming a legacy of adventure to follow them for centuries to come. Over the next few hundred years, the feats of these explorers will slowly be forgotten and replaced with those of the likes of Bill Cochran, an astronomer at The University of Texas.

Like his counterparts during the age of discovery, Bill also charts unknown territories. Unlike them, he does this from the confines of a telescope control room, searching for planets around stars other than the Sun. "You can discover new worlds," says Bill, "very strange and interesting worlds."

"I had no interest in astronomy as a kid."

Bill was born and raised in Schenectady, New York. He says he enjoyed camping and hiking and, in high school, wrestling on the varsity team. His colleagues often were amateur astronomers as children, but, Bill says, "I was the opposite. I had no interest in astronomy as a kid."

As a student at Duke University, Bill first tried his hand at engineering but quickly found, "No, that's not it." He liked physics, but Bill wanted to pursue some particular application of the physical sciences. He first tried biophysics because "it was an up and coming field," but a single biology course swayed him from this path. "Astrophysics sounded good," but Duke didn't offer any astronomy courses. During one summer at home, Bill enrolled in an astronomy course at the local university and, right away, was hooked. He then decided to study astronomy in graduate school and went to Princeton where he would finish his Ph.D. in four years.

"They haven't thrown me out."

After graduation, Bill came to Texas to work as a postdoctoral researcher with Larry Trafton. Since coming here, "they haven't thrown me out," says Bill who is now a Senior Research Scientist who often uses McDonald Observatory telescopes for his research.

Also, during his time as a post-doctoral researcher, Bill worked with a young woman, Anita. Soon thereafter she become his companion and wife. Together, they enjoy square dancing, cycling (about 30 miles per week) and oenology, the art and science of wine tasting. Bill and Anita have been married more than twenty-five years.

These days, Bill is forging ahead with his program of exploration and employing the help of others. Current and former graduate students have devoted many hours of work under his tutelage and guidance. With their work, we look forward to learning of their "new and interesting worlds."

William C. Cochran
Senior Research Scientist, McDonald Observatory
Ph.D., Astronomy, Princeton University
B.S., Physics, Duke University

Chris teaches astronomy at Rice University, in Houston, Texas. Most of his current work is devoted to studying T Tauri stars, which are low-mass, young stars that have only recently emerged from their birthplaces – clouds of gas and dust – to become visible to optical-light telescopes like those at McDonald Observatory. Many of these young stars show a host of unusual features which appear to be related in one way or another to the fact that they are surrounded by active accretion disks, Chris says. These are the Classical T Tauri stars, and the disks that surround them are sites where planetary systems are currently forming. Much of Chris' work has been centered on trying to understand the (sometimes very extreme) variability found in Classical T Tauri stars.

Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University
Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of California, Berkeley
M.A., Astronomy, The University of California, Berkeley
B.S., Physics, The University of Texas at Austin
B.A., Math, The University of Texas at Austin

As a graduate student in physics at the New York University in Manhattan, Steve Federman says, "somebody showed me pretty pictures" of astronomical phenomena. Sparking an interest in the discipline, he attended monthly meetings of an amateur astronomy group in New York City. Steve says these two things were probably what influenced him most to find a career in astronomy.

Steve received his bachelor's degree in physics at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic University) and his master's and doctorate in physics from New York University. After doing post-doctoral studies at the University of Texas at Austin, he worked for a while at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Since 1988, he has been on the faculty at The University of Toledo.

Studying the Stuff Between the Stars

Steve says he spends much of his research effort in understanding the nature of material between stars, called "the interstellar medium." In these regions where gas and dust have collected into molecular clouds, new generations of stars are formed. Steve, through his work, says he hopes to better understand how the physical environment offered by the interstellar medium affects this star formation. Steve often uses the telescopes of McDonald Observatory as well as the Hubble Space Telescope. He collaborates with many astronomers in the United States and around the world including David Lambert, the current director of McDonald Observatory.

One of the things Steve says he likes best about his job is "seeing all the pieces [of a project] come together and understanding why things are the way they are."

Tennis and a Teenage Daughter

In his spare time, Steve enjoys playing tennis and also enjoys hiking and biking occasionally. He has one daughter who is in her beginning year of high school. He regards this time as "an exciting event for them."

Steve Federman
Professor, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo
Ph.D., Physics, New York University
M.S., Physics, New York University
B.S., Physics, Polytechnic University, Brooklyn

With the intention of steering clear of astronomy as a profession, Jacqueline Dunn says she began her undergraduate education at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth with an astronomy minor paired with a major in environmental science. According to Jackie, many of her family members had already gone down the physics/math route, and she had the desire to try something a little different. She took an interest in marine biology, she says. Due to a family history of military service, Jackie thought of joining the Navy. But after her first astronomy class, Jackie says she realized that the love for the stars must be in her blood and she couldn't deny her interest.

"Just going to the observatories is cool."

Having finished graduate school, Jackie is in the early stages of her career. When asked about the most exciting parts of her job, she says that "just going to the observatories is cool." One thing she didn't know would be a large part of being an astronomer is the amount of computer programming she is required to do. Staying alert during the late hours that an astronomer must work can also be difficult, but Jackie combats that with lots of caffeine and music, ranging from Broadway tunes to hard rock. The genre really makes no difference she says, so long as the music is loud.

Feynman the Dog

In what little spare time she has, her and her husband, Austin, enjoy participating in dog shows. They own a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, and although they are relatively new to the hobby, little Feynman (named after the Nobel-prize winning physicist) has already brought home the honor of third in his class.

When asked what she thinks about the possibility of life on other planets, Jackie says that's one of her favorite questions she asks others because of all the interesting responses. She adds, "I do believe there's life somewhere else in the universe, but I doubt we'll ever find it."

Jacqueline Dunn
Assistant Professor, Physics, Midwestern State University
PhD, Texas Christian University
Masters, Physics, Texas Christian University
B.S. Physics and Astronomy, Texas Christian University

Astronomer by day, astronomer by night, Mark Cornell, is one of those lucky people whose careers intersect their hobbies. For him, this stems in part from a longstanding interest of his: amateur astronomy. "There are two types of astronomers, those who got interested in physics and astronomy in college, for one reason or another… I'm the other type -- afflicted from youth."

Originally from Alton, Illinois (just outside St. Louis) Mark graduated from Caltech with an undergraduate degree in astronomy. He went on to do graduate work at the University of Arizona, before coming to The University of Texas. After years of heading the computer group -- the team that writes data acquisition software for use at McDonald Observatory and which supports and services the computers in the Astronomy Department -- he has recently gone back into full-time research.

Working in conjunction with Professor John Kormendy and undergraduate student David Fisher, he is investigating the relatively new field of galactic pseudobulges. Overall, he says he feels that his career path has been fairly unconventional. "I've always been more on the technical side of astronomy," he says. Though never formally trained in computer science -- both his graduate and undergraduate degrees are in astronomy -- he has had long experience with computers and writing software, and is intimately acquainted with the systems that the Astronomy Department runs on.

Though an astronomer by day and night, amateur and professional astronomy are hardly the limit of Mark's interests. On the contrary, he enjoys a wide variety of literature, ranging from classic hard science fiction to more modern historical fiction. He has an interest in classical music, with a preference for full orchestra, and he greatly enjoys the theater and films. Perhaps his most surprising non-professional interest is furniture making. Mark builds furniture to aesthetically simple and minimalist designs, making chairs, stepladders, dressers, and cabinets, among other pieces. When observing on his 16-inch Dobsonian telescope he uses a two-foot stepladder built from a traditional Shaker design.

Mark and his wife love animals, a fact attested to by their stewardship of a cat, a dog, and a tank of tropical fish. Mark has always liked shelties, though he doesn't have one now, and though not much of a cat person, he has a great fondness for their once feral cat. His wife breeds and cares for the saltwater fish.

Mark Cornell
Research Scientist, McDonald Observatory
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Arizona
B.S., Astronomy, California Institute of Technology

Pawan Kumar perhaps does not fit the popular conception of an astronomer -- he is rarely to be found burning the midnight oil in an observatory. Rather, you'd more likely find him working at the desk in his pleasant 17th floor office. Pawan does not observe astronomical objects with telescopes; his forte is the theoretical side of astronomical phenomena. Using data gathered by other astronomers, he strives to understand and solve some of the big questions of modern astronomy. Currently, his attention is fixed on gamma-ray bursts -- extremely concentrated, intense, and short lived emissions of gamma rays.

From India to Austin via CalTech, MIT, & Princeton

Born in north-central India, Pawan spent his early academic career at the Indian Institute of Technology, earning degrees in computer science and physics. Though he did not end up in the software industry, the physics degree provided a platform for his jump into astronomy. After working for a year he went back to school, eventually receiving a PhD in astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology. He subsequently worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and now does research at The University of Texas at Austin.

Training Science Teachers

Pawan also participates in the UTeach program, which trains future elementary and secondary-school science and math teachers. In particular, he teaches these future science educators how to think critically, how to read scientific literature, and how to carry out independent research.

Over the course of his career, Pawan has entertained interest in several astronomical subjects, including helioseismology (the study of the Sun's interior) and gamma-ray bursts, but he is more broadly interested in figuring things out. That is to say that the most exciting part of his job is discovering the solution to a puzzle, and being the first to do so. Referring to his work, Pawan remarks, "The most enjoyable part is to understand something that nobody knew before or that you had no idea was going on."

A Passion for Reading

Pawan says he also has a passion for reading, with a particular fondness for current affairs and literature. Eighteenth and nineteenth century classics are his favorites.

Pawan Kumar
Professor, Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D. Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology
M. Tech, Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology

From New Zealand, to Thailand, to Denmark, you name it, David Yong's been there. He says his best trip was to India and Nepal, where he trekked around the monstrous Himalayan Mountains. During the trip he got to listen to teachings straight from the mouth of the Dalai Lama and oddly enough, bumped into two people he knew from school. The next trip that he has planned will take him to Chile for some observing opportunities. As David says, astronomy is really good for a person interested in travel.

Live Music Capital

Starting out from his home in Australia, David's love for travel has taken him all over the world, and was a key factor in convincing him to do his graduate work in Austin. It turns out that Austin had more to offer David than just a trip to the other side of the globe. In his free time, he likes to listen to acoustic-based, folk and country music, preferably performed live, making the "Live Music Capital" the perfect city for him.

He considers Austin "a great place" for many other reasons as well, such as the paths around Town Lake that he enjoys running, and the vegetarian options that local restaurants offer. David decided to become a vegetarian in December 1997, tracing his desire to do so back to an early trauma. He remembers watching a cartoon in primary school where baby seals were clubbed to their unfortunate death. Not being able to shake this image for the last 20 years or so, David embraces the joys of tofu and says he "has no regrets." The only thing that stands in his way is "Stubbs," a Texas-style restaurant that all his visiting friends want to experience, but that offers absolutely nothing that isn't meat-based.

"I didn't like anything else I tried."

David is from Melbourne, Australia and received his undergraduate degree in English Literature, Math and Astrophysics from Monash University. What's his attraction to astronomy? "Well," says David, "I didn't like anything else I tried." So, due to process of elimination, David happily works the late hours of an astronomer, which for him requires the loudest music possible, drifting from the folk songs into techno as the night progresses.

David Yong
Graduate Student, University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Astrophysics and Mathematics, Monash University, Australia
B.A., English Literature, Monash University, Australia

Pam Marcum says she first became interested in astronomy in her early teens after reading a book on stellar evolution. She was fascinated by the idea the Sun wouldn't always be the same as it is today and "that stars change in a very predictable way." From that point, she didn't entertain the thought of becoming anything else and knew that she wanted to be an astronomer.

She attended the Florida Institute of Technology for degrees in Physics and Space Science and then received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. For her post-doctoral work, she went just across the Appalachian Mountains from her Kentucky home to the University of Virginia. As a faculty member at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, she spent many nights at the telescope, passing the time on her computer. Now, her observing will take place on the SOFIA aircraft.

Blown away by nature's beauty.

Pam says growing up in the mountains gave her the opportunity to "enjoy the Shenandoah Valley." She still likes to spend her spare time outdoors enjoying the beautiful things that nature has to offer. She's taken two field trips to Big Bend National Park with some of her TCU students and has many fond memories of the good time that they had there. She's also been to Hawaii a couple of times and has driven with friends to the panhandle to visit Palo Duro canyon, whose beauty "blew her away." She also enjoyed a trip that she took to an Oklahoma park where the wild animals were permitted to run free in their natural habitat. "It was neat to see all the animals as they might have existed in the past," says Pam. Besides traveling to national and state parks, Pam enjoys other outside hobbies such as biking, hiking and canoeing.

Pamela Marcum
Project scientist, NASA SOFIA misssion
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Wisconsin - Madison
M.S., Space Science,Florida Institute of Technology
M.S., Physics, Florida Institute of Technology
B.S., Space Science, Florida Institute of Technology

Well known for his work on supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei, John Kormendy has done substantial work in other areas as well, notably the study of galactic bulges, the evolution of elliptical galaxies, and dark matter halos of galaxies.

Born in Austria, John has long been interested in the sciences. As a teenager growing up in eastern Canada, he performed chemistry experiments in his basement, trying -- for example -- to make nitroglycerine. His efforts were only partly successful, because he had no centrifuge to purify the reaction products. "I had to spin a test tube around my head on a string. So I never succeeded in making pure nitroglycerine; I could never get it to explode, the most it would do is ‘whoosh' like a blowtorch. Maybe this wasn't entirely a bad thing."

Although interested in chemistry, biology, astronomy, and other natural sciences, John gradually focused more and more on astronomy. While in high school, he had an observatory with a roll-off roof and an eight-inch telescope that he assembled out of prefabricated parts. By the time he enrolled at the University of Toronto's Honors Math, Physics and Chemistry program, he was clearly headed for a career in astronomy.

From Plates to Pixels

John's career has bridged a number of transitions in the field of astronomy. None has been as important, he says, as the change from photographic plates to electronic light detectors. He was one of the last generation of students to carry out his doctoral thesis using photographic plates. Most of these observations were made on the Mt. Wilson 100-inch Hooker Telescope. Soon thereafter, he was introduced to electronic detectors during a postdoctoral fellowship at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson. These provided much more sensitive and reliable measurements than did photographic plates.

John's career has also encompassed a wide range of extragalactic research areas. While continuing to work on black holes and dark matter halos, in recent years he has ramped up another long-term interest, namely the gradual evolution of disk galaxies as they are rearranged by the gravitational effects of bars. He has just completed a major review article on this subject for the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. He also continues a long-term program to study the formation and evolution of elliptical galaxies. Recently, research scientist Mark Cornell and proto-graduate student David Fisher have joined both of these projects.

Bird Photography, and Opera, Too

Outside of his astronomical research, John's interests range from travel and photography to scuba diving and bird watching. Birding, in particular, has become a major passion. John and his wife Mary have now birded widely in the USA, including Hawaii, as well as Canada, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Ecuador, Australia, and Europe. Another long-term passion is opera; his personal favorite is a March 1983 production by the New York Metropolitan Opera of Don Carlo by Giuseppe Verdi.

John Kormendy Professor at The University of Texas at Austin Curtis T. Vaughan, Jr. Centennial Chair In Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin Ph.D., Astronomy, California Institute of Technology B.S. Honors Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry (Astronomy Division) University of Toronto

Whenever Steve Odewahn needs to relieve a little stress, he heads for the woodpile and the power tools. His furniture building hobby began while he was doing post doctoral work at Caltech. Wanting a Mexican tiled-top table, but not wanting to pay a steep price for it, he decided to make his own. That project led to more and more, landing him in a cabinet making class while at Arizona State University. Steve also took up weightlifting extensively as a graduate student to work off tension.

Ducks and Cats

One Easter afternoon, Steve saw a duckling crossing the street all by itself. He scooped it up and took it home, even though it was too young to survive without its mother. The duck didn't last long, but Steve ended up visiting a woman who worked in duck rescue and ended up with two new ducks of his own, now named Diego and Frida. Steve also has two cats, Bob and Kitty, but they keep their distance from the birds. When the ducks were little, the cats might have bothered them, but now "the ducks are pretty tough."

Early astronomy work

Steve has been interested in astronomy since childhood. As a teenager, he began to be an amateur astronomer by grinding and polishing two of his own telescope mirrors. This inquisitive nature and interest in astronomy motivated him all the way from childhood experiments to obtaining a PhD under the direction of Gerard de Vaucouleurs at the University of Texas in the 1980s.

Stephen C Odewahn
Resident Astronomer, McDonald Observatory
Research Associate, McDonald Observatory
Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
M.A., Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, The University of Alabama

Jian Ge a Research Foundation professor at the University of Florida.

His research interests are concentrated on developing and applying new instrument techniques and instruments for new astronomical observations with ground-based and space-based telescopes.

Jian was a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He's also worked at The University of Arizona's Steward Observatory and Beijing Astronomical Observatory, and Penn State University. He is part of a large collaborative that uses the Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

Jian Ge
Research Foundation Professor, Astronomy, University of Florida
Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of Arizona
B.Sc., Theoretical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China

Whenever research scientist Dan Lester needs to blow off some steam he turns to the relaxing powers of dough. Since watching his mother when he was child, one of Dan's favorite hobbies has been to bake bread from scratch. This is no passing fancy; Dan has installed an outdoor oven specifically for those hot, summer days when cooking inside is not an option. When Dan's not baking, he enjoys outdoor activities like hiking, climbing, running and swimming. He also spends a lot of time as a recreational soccer coach for children and following around his two daughters, Jenna and Amanda.

An Astronomical Marriage

Dan and his wife of almost 20 years, Harriet Dinerstein, are well suited to each other. One a research scientist, the other an astronomy professor, they both spend a lot of their time looking at and thinking about the night sky. When asked if the children seem to be moving in that direction as well, Dan replies that it really doesn't matter much to him. He encourages them to pursue whatever they are curious about and says, "It warms my heart when they come home from school and are excited about something they learned in science." For him, the focus should not be with turning children into astronomers, but raising them as curious and inquisitive people."

An important issue for Dan is public outreach, so just as with his children, his goal to see more people experiencing and understanding science. He uses "astronomy education as a tool for greater science education."

"We're a country defined by exploring."

Currently, Dan is involved in the early stages of planning and designing new telescopes to be built in the next decade. From working with scientists at NASA all the way to politicians at Capitol Hill he makes recommendations about what direction astronomical engineering should move toward in the coming years. Dan says that sometimes it's hard for people to understand the national need for astronomy. Most people explain that it's "just like art or music: beautiful and that we do it because we are curious." But Dan thinks the need is better defined with one word: exploration. The love of exploration is both an American tradition and adds value to everything we do. It goes well beyond astronomy, but Dan thinks it's a great place to start.

Dan Lester
Research Scientist, McDonald Observatory
PhD Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California-Santa Cruz
B.A. Physics, University of Oregon

Bev Wills, an astronomer at The University of Texas at Austin, is brimming with excitement as she talks about the loves of her life: her husband Derek, baroque music, a recent interest in running, painting abstract and impressionistic art, and, of course, astronomy.

Love at First Light?

Bev and Derek met in the control room of the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia. Bev, then a graduate student of radio astronomy at the Australian National University, was observing other galaxies at this 100-foot radio telescope, which helped to transmit the first images of a man on the Moon, when Derek was slated to observe there immediately after her. Also, sharing an interest in music, they played together with other musicians at a local farmer's house. Fortunately, Bev's love of music still thrives today. She plays the violin, recorder, and viola da gamba, a type of baroque cello, with several groups in Austin.

A few years ago, another astronomer asked Bev to go running with her to which Bev says she thought, "Gosh, that's ridiculous." However, Bev did start running with her friend and, since, has formed a love for this sport. As she relates the results of her latest race and her most recent personal record, she talks with great exuberance. Her joy with running, however, is merely a glimpse of the fascination that Bev holds for her study of astronomy.

"I assume you mean other than astronomy."

Ask Bev what she likes to do, and she will tell you excitedly about music and running and art -- for she holds intense interest in all -- but her enthusiasm for astronomy is like a pot of boiling water, with great bubbles of steam wildly rolling over themselves. When asked about her interests, she says, "I assume you mean other than astronomy," probing whether or not she has an attentive ear for her latest findings. Truly, Bev Wills is the epitome of romance in astronomy; she is infatuated with her cosmic investigations.

Studying active galaxies at all wavelengths

In the course of these investigations, Bev has explored active galactic nuclei (AGN) immensely bright galaxies that are thought to contain supermassive black holes within their central regions. As a graduate student, she spent much time studying the radio waves from these objects and, as a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University, began studying the correlation between the radio properties of AGN with those properties that are inferred from the observations of visible light. Recently, Bev has been using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study AGN more closely and has continued to investigate light of many different wavelengths -- radio waves, visible and infrared light, X-rays, gamma-rays, and more -- so that she might fully understand the physical processes that drive AGN.

Beverley Wills
Research Scientist, The University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, Australian National University
B.S., Physics, University of Melbourne (Australia)

Brian Roman is a Research Engineer/Scientist Associate at McDonald Observatory. Brian first came to the Observatory to become a telescope operator for the HET, and then moved into a position as a resident astronomer for the HET. Before coming to Texas, he was an assistant astronomer for the Planet Crossing Asteroid Survey at JPL in California. During this time, he co-discovered four comets. He also worked on the Solid State Imaging team for the NASA Galileo probe of Jupiter. He worked on obtaining the first resolved visual images of asteroid Gaspra -- and discovered that he liked asteroids as a subject.

A change of careers brought Brian to Austin to work on designing robotic lighting fixtures and creating manufacturing techniques in industry, but he missed astronomy. The position at McDonald Observatory offered him an opportunity not only to become involved in astronomy, but also an opportunity to continue his education. Brian is working towards a M.S. degree in Space Studies through an on-line program with University of North Dakota. If his research projects on McDonald telescopes are successful, he expects his degree in August 2004.

Brian lives at the Observatory with his wife, Dona, and two sons Eric and Jason. Brian met Dona while both were in college and working at a restaurant. Brian's skills as a professional cook get regular practice at his home. He likes to try new recipes for foods that are unusual for the area -- Indian and Vietnamese cuisine. Living at a remote place like the Observatory has its own challenges. Brian coaches Jason's Little League team every spring; recently they drove 120 miles to Terlingua for a game.

Brian Roman
Research Engineer/Scientist Associate, McDonald Observatory
B.S., Astrophysics, University of Oklahoma

Growing up in Northern Spain, Carlos Allende Prieto went to many schools there including the Universities of Oviedo, Santander, and La Laguna. His wife Elena is also from Spain.

When it was finally time to pick a discipline of further study, Carlos says he was drawn to astronomy. He had always enjoyed physics and says he thought that astronomy was "exotic and weird." He said to himself, "This could be exciting!" and now each day at work he finds that intuition to be true.

He moved to Austin to the University of Texas as a W.J. McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow. His research interests include spectral line formation and model atmospheres and the structure and evolution of the Milky Way.

Carlos Allende Prieto Instituto de Astrofısica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain Ph.D., Physics, University of La Laguna, Spain

Eiichiro Komatsu, professor of astronomy at the University of Texas, loves to play and watch baseball. He says he feels a kinship with the current Japanese baseball players playing for the major leagues here in America because they came to U.S. about the same time he did.

"As the baseball players were trying to fit in to the baseball community, I was trying to fit into the astronomy community in the U.S," he says. Eiichiro found the player's success to be encouraging and says it helped him to overcome the obstacles of a new culture and language. He first came to the U.S. to work on his doctoral dissertation at Princeton University.

Although he hasn't had a chance to play on a baseball team since high school, Eiichiro says he follows his favorite team, the Seattle Mariners, closely. One of their players comes from a team in Japan which had a franchise in his hometown. Eiichiro hoped that since the player's name was Ichiro, as he became famous, Eiichiro wouldn't ever have to worry about people misunderstanding his name. He soon realized, however, as he was doing graduate work at Princeton, that Ichiro the baseball star's fame didn't quite reach the East Coast. But, when visiting Seattle for a game, he finally received the recognition that he hoped for and didn't have to repeat his name when reserving a table at restaurants.

"Austin's just like western Japan.

Eiichiro and his wife, who came to Austin in early 2004, say that the atmosphere is surprisingly similar to the western part of Japan. Eiichiro says that the differences between the east and west of Japan parallel the differences between the northern and southern United States. The culture and the people are different, but he feels like Austin is more congruent with his childhood home.

"Also similar," says Eiichiro, "is the weather, which is hot and humid." It always feels like summer in the western part of Japan, Eiichiro says, so he feels right at home in the wet Texas heat.

Creative Science

Eiichiro remembers that when he was in the fifth grade, he saw a picture of the Orion nebula (his favorite) for the first time. So impressed by the textbook's pictures, he decided then and there to become an astronomer. Never wavering for a moment from this dream, he entered Japan's Tohoku University to study astronomy. He says one of his favorite things about being an astronomer is the aspect of creativity that astronomy encourages and that other practical sciences can't allow.

Eiichiro received the 2004 Young Astronomer Award from the Astronomical Society of Japan for his work on constraining inflation models of the early universe.

Eiichiro Komatsu
Director of Texas Cosmology Center
Professor, The University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, Tohoku University, Japan
B.A., Astronomy, Tohoku University, Japan

During the 1960s, most college women were strongly advised to get a teaching certificate. In order to do this at Notre Dame of Ohio, Mary Kay was required to take a certain psychology class, which she adamantly refused because, as she says, "I was so sure I didn't want to teach." Instead, after rejecting a possible major in chemistry and receiving encouraging advice from physics professor Sallie Watkins, she says she decided to pursue physics.

During college she participated in a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation that provided research experience at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. She says she realized there that "all these people were getting paid to do astronomy" and that it "looked more fun than physics." She then applied to graduate school in astronomy.

Between college and graduate school, Mary Kay spent six weeks at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, which gave her the rare opportunity to live and work in the Herstmonceux Castle. During graduate school she once again found herself overseas to do part of her dissertation in the Netherlands. One of her fondest memories, she says, is from a class she didn't even pay to attend. "I was happy to sit in on "Galactic Dynamics'" since it was the last time it would be taught by the famous astronomer Jan Oort.

Her dissertation focused on astrometry, the study of the positions and motions of stars. By studying certain variable stars, astronomers can discern important distances and thus accurately scale the galaxy.

Coming to Texas over thirty years ago, she made a career in Astronomy Education focusing on innovation and support for college undergraduate non-astronomy-major courses and Teacher Professional Development for K-12 teachers in projects such as the American Astronomical Society Teacher Resource Agent program. The question from her college years about teaching was answered with a career focused on education issues.

Taking some family time

During the ’70s Mary Kay taught part-time and started her family. She worked part-time as her children, Anne and Sara, grew up. She also has one granddaughter who is keenly interested in linguistics.

Bridge and Basketball

In her free time, Mary Kay says she enjoys playing bridge with the 25 year-old Astronomy Bridge Group. Since they've run out of astronomers interested in playing, they have extended membership to people from other disciplines. Mary Kay is also an avid fan of Texas Women's Basketball.

Mary Kay Hemenway Research Associate and Senior Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin

Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Virginia

M.A., Astronomy, University of Virginia

B.S., Physics, Notre Dame of Ohio

"I don't even remember what we looked at, but I fell instantly in love," says William Lee Powell as he reflects on his childhood encounters with astronomy. Following his father, a pipeline engineer, Lee spent two years during grade school in Saudi Arabia, where "light pollution was unheard of." On desert camping trips with the Boy Scouts, Lee would get a chance to gaze through what he thought at the time were "large" telescopes. In reality they were probably only 8- to 10-inch telescopes, but what they offered was enough to captivate Lee and entice him to study astronomy in college.

Although he had many interests, ranging from English to oceanography, Lee found the study of physics to be "like learning a new language." While majoring in physics and English, he minored in astronomy. Torn between being accepted to graduate school in physics, oceanography, and English and also being accepted to law school, Lee finally made the decision to follow his boyhood dreams into astronomy.

A Growing Family

Lee and his wife Julie, a high school science teacher, have two children, a boy Conor and his younger sister Delaney Grace. The happy family has two dogs, Belle and Tess, and an aquarium full of South American Cichlids. As for his wife, Lee says, "Julie is great; how many spouses would let their spouse quit a good paying permanent teaching position to return to graduate school for a PhD?"

Novel Teaching Techniques

Before beginning graduate school, Lee was the science department chair and taught physics and astronomy at the Louisiana School of Math, Science and the Arts. He says, "I loved the teaching environment there, and I will always be very teaching focused, but I missed research, and the possibility of mentoring serious research."

Lee also served on the National Astronomy Education Committee of the American Association of Physics Teachers because he is "interested in novel teaching techniques that lead to greater understanding on the part of the students."

The Big Tension Releasers

In Lee's spare time, he enjoys writing and singing folk music and playing the guitar. He also enjoys golf, which he plays once or twice a month, "just enough to keep my single digit handicap" and to a lesser extent, enjoys other sports like tennis, ultimate Frisbee and mountain biking.

William Lee Powell
Asst. Prof. of Physics, Texas Lutheran University
PhD, Physics, Texas Tech University
M.S., Physics, Stephen F. Austin State University
B.S., Physics/English, Stephen F. Austin State University

University of Texas Postdoctoral Fellow Thomas Maas was always good at math, he says. Growing up in Belgium, he attended the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (the largest Flemish university in the world) to receive the equivalent of an American undergraduate degree in mathematics. After that, he was given three choices. He could either study pure math, applied math, or astronomy. He had no real interest in the first two, he says, and two of his good friends had chosen to go into astronomy. Thomas also noticed that interesting and challenging courses, like quantum physics, were offered in the astronomy department, so he decided to follow that path.

While working on his thesis on the chemical processes in evolved stars, he realized that he was "very pleased and interested with his subject." At that point, he says he decided for sure that he had made the right choice and that he would continue in astronomy. He went to the French part of Belgium for a year to take an astronomy course and then, upon receiving a scholarship to work on a PhD, returned to Leuven. When he finished his PhD, he wasnt quite sure where to head next. After sending out his thesis to various astronomers around the world, McDonald Observatory Director David Lambert asked him to come to Texas.

Favorite parts of the job

Thomas says there are two things about his job that he enjoys most. Going out to McDonald Observatory is particularly enjoyable for him because, he says, because "its a beautiful place to be and its nice to be able to work with a large telescope and a good instrument." He also appreciates the silence that the Observatory offers. His other favorite part comes after all the reducing of the data is over and "you get to draw conclusions."

Texas life and spare time

Thomas hasn't been in Texas long but he's already enjoying Austin. He says he likes the place and the openness of the people. He also likes the international community that Austin supports.

In his spare time, Thomas likes to play soccer and chess. In his younger years he played in chess tournaments, but now he plays only for recreation. Other than that, he enjoys watching movies and listening to a variety of music. In general he says his favorite genre is probably rock, but his interest in music is much broader than that.

Thomas Maas
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas, Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Master in Astrophysics and Geophysics, Universite de Liege, Belgium
Undergraduate degree, Mathematics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Belgium

Lisa Prato was an English Literature major for much of her college career. By her third year, she reasoned that while reading and writing could be done anytime, science would be more difficult to learn independently. After taking a class on solar system astronomy, she "got hooked" and decided to take advantage of the structure of a university and changed majors. She enjoyed the subject matter so much that she surpassed the various challenges that resulted from the switch in studies late in her college education.

The "Eureka" Moment

Lisa is currently a tenure track astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Northern Arizona. She primarily studies star formation and specifically focuses on binary systems. Since "most stars are in a binary system," she says, "these multiples are very important to catalogue and characterize." Young binaries are particularly important because of their potential impact on planet formation.

Lisa says that the instant she finishes reducing a piece of data, she sees "something that no one else on Earth has ever seen." Even a tiny discovery is an "incomparable thrill." The "eureka" moment of figuring out what is going on in a young star is Lisa's favorite part about her work.

Cat Herding

In her spare time, Lisa enjoys outdoor activities like road biking, hiking and running. She hopes to someday take her bike with her to McDonald Observatory so that she can cycle on the West Texas roads. She also enjoys reading, eating a good meal, and drawing. However, her free moments are spent more with "herding" her two cats than with her other hobbies. Lisa explains that her feline companions live in Flagstaff, Arizona and "graciously allow [her] to live with them."

Lisa Prato
Astronomer, Lowell Observatory
Ph.D., Astronomy, State University of New York, Stony Brook
B.S., Astronomy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
B.A., English, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Doug O'Neal says he remembers perusing children's books on planets when he was as young as eight years old. He was later encouraged by one of his middle school teachers who suggested all the students spend some time gazing at the night sky. They were given some information about what they would see, and Doug took advantage of the opportunity to learn more through amateur observation.

As Doug's interest in astronomy grew, several things convinced him that he should pursue it as a career. He says a book by Carl Sagan came out when he was 11 years old and reinforced the "exciting and romantic" aspects of astronomy that already intrigued him. As school continued, he realized that he had no trouble with math and physics problems and that there was no reason why he should not follow his dreams.

First a Teacher, Then a Researcher

Doug received a bachelor's degree and his doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics from Penn State University. Still in the classroom, he now teaches these subjects at Allegheny College. His second priority concerns research in which he focuses on cooler stars with starspots or flares and magnetic activity.

Amateur Science Fiction Novelist

Doug is an amateur science fiction novelist. He also enjoys classical music and reading non-fiction books. His favorite topics consist of various sciences including biology, archaeology, geology, math and history. He especially likes to read about the history of science.

Another one of Doug's passions is watching the Penn State women's volleyball team. He runs an e-mail list for fans of Big Ten Conference women's volleyball.

Douglas O'Neal
Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Keystone College
Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics, Allegheny College
Ph.D., Astronomy and Astrophysics, Penn State University
B.S., Astronomy, Penn State University

David Fisher grew up in Waxahachie, Texas -- a mile from the now defunct main campus of the Texas Superconducting Super Collider. Little did he know then that Physics would become a part of his life. In high school, his favorite subjects were history and English. As an undergraduate at the University of Texas, David was sure that journalism was in his future. After a year of college, he was inspired to explore the US. Working in factories, such as the largest Styrofoam factory in the world, and sleeping on floors, convinced him that completing his college education was a good idea. Enrolled in an astronomy class, David went to a Star Party and saw the rings of Saturn. "It was all over! I knew I had to study astronomy," David said. With no background in physics or calculus, David began a physics degree. Working with John Kormendy in the Astronomy Department on a galaxy research project, David decided to apply to the University for graduate study in Astronomy. He also participated in an exchange program in Germany - doing astronomy for a summer, and sleeping on the floor while traveling through Germany.

David's interest in galaxies eventually led to his dissertation. David also received the David Allen Benfield Memorial Scholarship in Astronomy for excellence in research.

David Fisher
Research Associate, University of Maryland
Ph.D, Astronomy, University of Texas
B.S., Physics, University of Texas at Austin

Astronomy always fascinated Amanda Bauer as a child, but she never thought that it could be a feasible career. Although she enjoyed the math club in high school, she really didn't see herself using those skills in later life. In college she studied French as a major for almost a year, but after unsuccessfully attempting to organize a study abroad program at her university, she recognized the tediousness of studying the mechanics of a language while not being able to experience the culture where the language is spoken. She quickly decided to change her major.

Amanda wanted to get into science, but she was unsure of which particular science interested her since her college had no Astronomy department. Since she was enrolled in an introductory astronomy course, she contacted her professor for advice. He offered her a job testing a CCD chip (that is, taking pictures of a blank wall in his basement laboratory) so she accepted the opportunity and changed her major to physics, having no real idea of what she was getting herself into!

She says that inspiration from the stars was severely hampered by the degree of light pollution in the Midwest, but she was convinced that she made the right decision during her first hiking trip to the mountains of California when she saw the Milky Way for the first time. Amanda received her undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Cincinnati in 2002, and her graduate degree at the University of Texas where her major area of study was galaxy assembly and evolution. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Nottingham in England, Amanda moved to Australia. She maintains a lively blog on astronomy and her travels under the title "astropixie".

Best of all worlds

When Amanda first came to Austin for graduate school, she was excited to find green rolling hills in place of the plentiful cactus and tumbleweeds she naively expected. With the exception of the fire ants that she has unfortunately encountered, she really likes the Austin landscape and wildlife.

Amanda loves live acoustic music and enjoying outdoor activities. She regularly finds time for camping, hiking, and swimming in the abundant fresh water swimming holes around Austin and the Hill Country. She says that the best of all worlds is when she goes camping at music festivals, enjoying the companionship, the great music, the campfires, and sleeping under the stars.

Amanda Bauer
Super Science Fellow at Australian Astronomical Observatory
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
M.A., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, University of Cincinnati

Anatoly Miroshnichenko was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia). As a teenager, he became an amateur astronomer.

He went on to study astronomy in college, and explains that his training took place in the math "faculty" — the Russian equivalent of a college — "because of a belief of Academician Sobolev that math is the basics for astronomy."

Sobolev, he says, was well known for the theory of moving envelopes of stars, and reigned over astronomy in Leningrad and later St. Petersburg from the 1950s to 1999. "At other Soviet universities, astronomy was always within the Physics faculty," Anatoly says.

His university thesis was on galactic supernovae. Anatoly explains that his initial degree corresponds to something in between a bachelor's and master's degree in the United States. He did his doctoral work on hot emission-line stars, finishing in 1992.

From the USSR to US

Anatoly has worked for the historic Pulkovo Observatory near Leningrad, which is called the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He worked one summer at the University of Kentucky, and later accepted a one-year post-doctoral position at the University of Toledo in Ohio. Next he spent a year-long stint back in Russia, before receiving a NASA grant which he used to return to Toledo. He stayed there for the next five years, holding several different research positions.

In August 2005, Anatoly joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He and his wife Tatyana have three daughters (Anya, Olga and Nadya) and two sons (Valdimir and Alexander).

Anatoly Miroshnichenko
Associate Professor, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Ph.D., Astronomy, Pulkovo Observatory, St. Petersburg, Russia
M.S., Mathematics and Mechanics, Leningrad State University, Leningrad, USSR

By the tender age of four, astronomer Ron Wilhelm already knew what he wanted to be. From gazing at the night sky with his family, to reading Astronomy magazine, to building his own telescope when he was 12, Ron was well on his way to being an astronomer. "I was always amazed by the endless universe of stars and multitudes of possible worlds," he says.

In high school, Ron had to fill out a standardized career test, and finding that "astronomer" wasn't on there, he says he answered every question with "absolutely do not want to do." He was promptly counseled about his lack of motivation and direction. But Ron knew where he was going and is still happy. "I'm excited by all aspects of my job," he says. As an assistant professor, he says he enjoys working with his students in an investigative curriculum, and also loves the challenge and support he receives from his colleagues.

Ron has taught introductory astronomy, introductory physics, modern physics, and advanced electricity and magnetism at several institutions including Western Kentucky University, Southwestern University, and Texas Tech. From 1997 to 2000 he was a research associate at McDonald Observatory. Today he is an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky.

"I have no hobbies anymore. Just kids."

Ron and Jennifer, his wife, have quite a lot in common. They met in a quantum mechanics class at Bowling Green University, and found their interests to be perfectly aligned. They both received master's degrees in physics from Michigan State. Jennifer is an associate professor at University of Kentucky in the College of Education, specializing in middle and high school mathematics instruction; she has also done research on moon phases. Ron went on to earn his doctorate from Michigan State, and Jennifer received hers from The University of Texas at Austin.

They have two children, Olivia and Sam, and an array of pets, including three dogs, four cats, a Guinea pig, a gerbil, five fish, and two parakeets. Ron says his family doesn't leave him much time to indulge in his hobbies, but he tries to find a few minutes to play his guitar or piano. Most of his time is spent as a dad, coaching his daughter's basketball team and playing computer games with his son.

Ron Wilhelm
Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky
Ph.D., Physics, Michigan State University
M.S., Physics, Michigan State University
B.S., Physics, Bowling Green State University

"I can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in astronomy and horses," says Don Winget. Don is a professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin.

"One of my most vivid early memories was watching a parade, after dark in Champagne, Illinois, where I grew up," he says. " I forgot all about the parade and lay on my back on the curb, wondering about those points of light on the sky."

Don says in his later school years, he and a friend went to monthly Open House nights at the University of Illinois. There, professor Stan Wyatt gave public lectures and also talked to Don about a career in astronomy. Dr. Wyatt advised Don to study physics in college, and that is what Don did.

Don received a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Illinois. He went on to receive a master's degree in physics from the University of Rochester, and a PhD in physics and astronomy from Rochester, as well.

Today, Don studies white dwarf stars, using them to study all different kinds of things. These include the physics of matter at high temperatures and densities, as well as the structure of galaxies, and the evolution of star populations in galaxies. He even looks for planets orbiting white dwarf stars, which would be the remnants of solar systems like our own, after its Sun had died.

Don has won many awards for his teaching at Texas, as well as several prizes for his scientific work, and he says McDonald Observatory is his "favorite spot on this Earth." He is a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

Don Winget
Harlan J. Smith Centennial Professor in Astronomy,
University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester
M.A., Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester
B.S., Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig

If he weren't an astronomer, Mike Montgomery says he would have become a professional musician. Mike plays violin, and enjoys playing what he calls "root-based music. Old-time music, bluegrass, blues, and jazz."

Mike was born in Tennessee, and grew up in Oklahoma and Texas. He attended high school in Victoria, Texas. It was during high school that he attended a summer workshop at Ball State University. "They said 'If you want to be an astronomer, major in physics'," Mike recalls.

Mike attended The University of Texas at Austin, where he indeed majored in physics. He went on to obtain a master's degree in physics from Princeton University. Finally, he returned to UT-Austin where he received a PhD in astronomy in 1998.

Since then, Mike has worked as an astronomical researcher at The University of Vienna, in Austria, and also at Cambridge University in the U.K. He returned to The University of Texas in 2004.

His favorite hobbies include playing music, tennis, foosball (sometimes called "table soccer") pinball, and bowling.

Mike Montgomery
Research Scientist, McDonald Observatory
PhD, Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
M.S., Physics, Princeton University
B.S., Physics, The University of Texas at Austin

Astronomer Damian Christian of California State University, Northridge, can remember wanting to be an astronomer as early as age 12. Growing up, he had a small Tasco telescope and did the occasional sketch of Jupiter or a lunar eclipse. This childhood passion for space would eventually evolve into a career.

Native New Yorker

Damian is a native New Yorker — born in the Bronx. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to what he calls "the metropolis of Scranton, Pennsylvania," where he spent most of his youth. He attended Pennsylvania State University, where he received bachelor's degrees in astronomy and physics. Later, he attended graduate school at the University of Maryland, where he received both a master's degree and Ph.D. in astronomy.

Motorcycle Racing

Damian has a newfound enthusiasm for racing motorcycles. Although he still considers himself a novice, he says he enjoys the thrill of seeing his lap times marked down as he races against time.

"In the end it's just you against the track and time," he said.

If Damian wasn't an astronomer, he says he would want to swap places with professional motorcycle racer Colin "The Texas Tornado" Edwards in the 2005 MotoGP. More realistically, he says, he would have been an electrical engineer. He considers himself good at taking things apart, but perhaps not so good at putting them back together.

An X-ray Comet

According to Damian, one of the most exciting moments of his career was when, in July 2001, he measured X-rays coming from a comet, which as far as anyone knew, weren't supposed come from comets. A theory was established as to what had caused the X-rays, which was later confirmed.

The rewards of being an astronomer are simple for Damian. He says he enjoys traveling to the telescope and adding knowledge to the astronomy community.

Damian describes himself as a night owl — that's how he can spend so many long nights observing. That and a constant supply of Mountain Dew.

Damian Christian
Professor, California State University, Northridge
Ph.D., astronomy, University of Maryland
M.S., astronomy, University of Maryland
B.S., physics and astronomy, Penn State

The profession of astronomy comes with both rewards and sacrifices. When post-doctoral student Barbara Castanheira decided to study abroad in America, she left behind her family and her native Brazil because the rewards of her profession were just that great.

Barbara came from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil to The University of Texas as part of a Brazilian fellowship opportunity, coupled with the chance to study with Don Winget - a leading scientist in her area of study. The program she worked under is sponsored by the Brazilian government.

Barbara was born in Alegrete, a small town deep in the southern heart of Brazil, although her family did not stay there for long. Six months after she was born, they moved to Porto Alegre, where she has been ever since.

Before she had even decided that she wanted to be an astronomer, she was already working with Professor Kepler de Souza Oliveira Filho, her current advisor, on the science behind pulsating white dwarf stars. After completing her studies, she won a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Vienna, Austria, which allows her to continue her research at McDonald Observatory.

Cooking, Sports, and Dancing

Barbara says she has a passion for cooking, and is fond of experimenting with different dishes. Although she tends to stick to Italian food, she can cook anything from sushi to Brazilian food.

As a native Brazilian, soccer runs in Barbara's blood. Her favorite team Gremio Football Porto-Alegrense is a local favorite and a source of pride for citizens of Porto-Alegre. Besides soccer, Barbara enjoys volleyball and swimming (she learned how to swim before she learned how to walk). She also likes to try knew sports, like her latest challenge, tennis.

For some, the secret to staying awake late at night on an observing run would be several cups of coffee, but for Barbara, dancing is the perfect adrenaline rush. She is proficient in quite a few forms of dancing, including samba, lambada, forro, and axe.

Barbara Castanheira
Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Texas at Austin
Post-doctoral associate, University of Vienna
Ph.D., Astronomy, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre, Brazil)

Just east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean lies the tiny island republic of Mauritius, birthplace of University of Texas astronomer Shardha Jogee. With a blossoming career that just doesn't seem to know any bounds, Shardha has followed an exciting path since completing her high school education. She was a Physics scholar and fellow at the University of Cambridge in England, a graduate scholar in astronomy at Yale University, and received numerous awards including an Amelia Earhart Fellowship and a prestigious long-term space astrophysics (LTSA) grant from NASA. She is generally considered one of the foremost experts in the evolution and structure of disk galaxies, and her research is frequently covered by the popular press, including ABC, MSNBC, Sky & Telescope magazine, Science magazine, and Reuters.

Mauritius to England to the U.S.

Mauritius has a unique history. It was discovered by the Portuguese, named by the Dutch settlers after the Prince Maurice of Nassau, colonized by the French and British, and finally gained its independence in 1968! Its local population derives primarily from immigrants who came from Europe, India, China, and Africa in the late 1700s. Shardha's own ancestors are believed to have come from India, perhaps 150 years ago. Today, Mauritius is an elite tourist destination for Europe: the entire island is basked in a cerulean blue ocean, embraced by coral reefs, wonderful landscapes, chic hotels, cosmopolitan hosts, and sophisticated cuisine. No wonder Mark Twain (1863-1910) said "You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius"!

While Shardha's native spoken language is French, she also speaks three others, including English. Once Shardha finished primary schooling in Mauritius, she left in 1989 for Cambridge University, England, where she was an undergraduate scholar and Fellow in Physics. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics by 1992 from Cambridge. Thereafter, she arrived in America to pursue graduate school at Yale University. There, she earned her M. Phil.(1994) M. S. (1994) and Ph.D (1999) and received the Yale University J. F. Enders Research Grant and Fellowships, a Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research, and the Amelia Earhart Fellowship.

CalTech, Space Telescope and UT-Austin

After Yale, Shardha took up a position as a postdoctoral research fellow at Caltech from 1999 to 2002. During that time, she expanded her research activities to address observational and theoretical aspects of the evolution, structure, and activities of disk galaxies over a wide range of cosmic lookback times. Following a national competitive process, NASA awarded her in 2003 a long-term space astrophysics (LTSA) grant of $558,000 in order to support her research.

In 2002, she was offered a tenure-track astronomer position at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, the institute directing the scientific mission of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. At STScI, she gained recognition as an expert on disk galaxies and bars, and soon joined the international GEMS, GOODS, and HUDF teams to conduct some of the most powerful galaxy surveys to date.

Shardha stayed at STScI until 2004, when she obtained a professorship at The University of Texas at Austin. Today, she leads an active research group there consisting of five undergraduate and graduate students and two postdoctoral fellows. She is also currently the Department of Astronomy's undergraduate advisor and is working with science educators with the goal of attracting excellent college-bound students into the sciences at UT-Austin, and in particular, into astronomy.

In her free time, Shardha enjoys dance, theater, music, yoga, and travel. She has indulged in rock, jazz ballet, swing, and now wishes to master the Latin flavors. She attends several astronomy conferences each year, giving her opportunities to travel all around the world.

Shardha Jogee Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Austin PhD, astronomy, Yale University M Phil, astronomy, Yale University MS, astronomy, Yale University MA, physics, Cambridge University (England) BS, physics, Cambridge University (England)

Mike Siegel is research associate at Penn State University; previously he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia in 2002 working with Steve Majewski and completed postdoctoral work at Space Telescope Science Institute working with Howard Bond. His primary research uses photometry, spectroscopy, and proper motions of field stars, globular clusters, and dwarf galaxies to reveal the formation history of the Galaxy. He is also studying the potential use of Pop II Post-Asymptotic Giant Branch stars as standard candles the derivation of stellar information from narrow-band photometry and properties of RR Lyrae variable stars in dwarf galaxies.

Mike enjoys baseball and books — lately he's been reading about American history, as well as reading his way through the Patrick O'Brian "Aubrey-Maturin" series.

Michael H. Siegel
Research Associate, Astronomy, Eberly College of Science at Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Virginia

As a young girl, Jennifer Sobeck had the same dream that many young children had — she wanted to be an astronaut. While most children eventually grew out of that phase, Jennifer's love of the heavens never subsided. Her career goals occasionally changed back and forth between medicine and astronomy, but in the end, her path led her back to where she began — as an person dedicated to exploring the stars.

Jennifer's own pursuits are not limited to the day-to-day rigors of being an astronomer; she is also heavily involved in youth education. As a teacher for an organization called Expanding Your Horizons, Jennifer uses science experiments to teach young girls about the opportunities that await them in scientific fields of study. At the last conference, she froze a carrot with liquid nitrogen.

"All those stupid stereotypes about women — I'm trying to get rid of those," she said.

Typically held twice a year on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin, the Expanding Your Horizons Conference is host to hundreds of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth- grade girls from around Texas.

"At this point in their lives, society is starting to tell them that they can't do these things," she said.

Currently a graduate student in astronomy at UT-Austin, Jennifer has been down a long road to get to where she is today. After having received her bachelors degree in physics from UT-Austin, she attended a biomedical program at The University of Houston, and then at Rice University. While her passion for medicine is still high, it was eventually outweighed by her love for astronomy.

Today, Jennifer studies the chemical compositions of stars. Much of her work is centered around the idea that you can use the various amounts of different chemical elements within a group of stars to trace the history of our Milky Way galaxy. She says the most exciting moment of her career came when she gave a presentation in Paris about her work.

In April of 2004, Jennifer married her husband Emre, a lawyer from Cypress. As soon as she gets her doctorate, Jennifer plans to find a research job in Europe to be with her husband.

Jennifer Sobeck
Graduate Student, Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
BS, Physics, The University of Texas at Austin

Barbara McArthur is a Research Scientist at McDonald Observatory.

In Indiana, basketball is a way of life. Both of Ian Roederer's parents are Indiana University alumni and gave him the name Ian Ulysses, or "IU". As a child growing up on Indiana basketball, the first song Ian learned was the Indiana fight song. Now, as an IU alum himself, he still follows Indiana basketball, but Ian has also adopted Texas football since he came to The University of Texas as a graduate student in astronomy.

In his work, Ian uses telescopes around the world. "As an observer, I am forced to go to exotic locations such as Hawaii and Chile," he said. "Once there, we have to lock ourselves in the dome and work, rather than going to the beach or going hiking."

Ian first learned the night sky constellations in fourth grade. He had little other exposure to the field until high school, when he encountered a few astronomy problems in his physics class. After taking a few astronomy classes in college at Indiana University, he eventually decided to major in both astronomy and physics. After graduating with degrees in physics and astronomy, he came to the University of Texas to pursue a PhD in astronomy.

"One of the things I love about this field is the friendliness of the people I work with," he says. "You can go crazy if you sit in your office and don't talk with anybody, but in astronomy you see the same people all over — at conferences and observing runs — throughout the course of your career. It's a small community."

Ian also has always had a passion for music. Through elementary school and high school, he was deeply involved with piano and did some of his own composing. Today, he and his wife Renee sing in their church choir.

Before becoming an astronomer, Ian says he considered being a teacher. Both of his parents teach — his mother teaches math at a community college and his father teaches sixth grade social studies. While being an astronomer is his profession, he says he has always felt somewhat of a familial calling to educate others.

Today, Ian studies the chemical evolution of the galaxy as a way to understand how it was formed. "We are all made from the remains of stars," he said, "and it is rewarding to take an active role in understanding and contributing to our knowledge of that."

Ian Roederer
Carnegie Post-doctoral Fellow, Carnegie Observatories
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
B.S., physics, Indiana University
B.S., astronomy, Indiana University

In Lima, Peru, there aren't too many stars to see in the sky. With a population of about eight million, the bustling city isn't very good for stargazing. Despite this, it's the place where astronomer Ivan Ramirez grew up, and calls home.

Ivan says he can remember being deeply into astronomy as early as age 10. Around that time, his father used to take him to camps out in the Peruvian countryside, where they would sit and watch the stars. At first it was a hobby, but by the end of high school, Ivan says he was convinced that astronomy was what he wanted to do with his life.

From college in Peru to graduate school in Texas

After high school, Ivan attended the National University of San Marcos in Lima. Though Peru has no astronomy degree programs, a small group of professional astronomers met regularly at Ivan's university. He joined the group, and decided to major in physics.

Ivan was very excited when he was accepted to The University of Texas at Austin to pursue a graduate degree in astronomy in June 2003. He worked under the guidance of David Lambert and Carlos Allende Prieto, who helped him develop his graduate thesis on the evolution of thin and thick disk stars in the Milky Way. After receiving his degree, he went to Germany as a post-doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.

Guitar and Soccer

In his free time, Ivan plays bass guitar in a band with a group of friends. He says they play for themselves, just to enjoy the music. Whenever the group meets, anywhere from 15 to 20 people will show up and together, and they play whatever they feel like playing.

Ivan also says he enjoys soccer. He likes both playing and watching the sport, and is a fan of his home team Alianza in Peru. He says he especially likes going to see a professional soccer matches, which he has attended in both Peru and Paris.

Ivan Ramirez
Sagan Fellow, Carnegie Observatories
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, National University of San Marcos, Peru

You could say that gravity drew Bi-Qing For into studying astronomy. When she was a young student growing up in Malaysia, she recalled being awestruck when she watched comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crash into Jupiter, and knew then that she wanted to study physics and astronomy.

"I was amazed by the gravitational force that perturbed the orbit of the comet so much that it crashed into Jupiter instead of passing by the planet," Bi-Qing said. "I was only 12 years old, and naively decided to study physics and astronomy when I grew up."

Although she said astronomy wasn't a popular subject when she was growing up in Malaysia, "I twisted my parents' arms to buy me a small Newtonian telescope and subscribe me to astronomy-related magazines to learn the basic stuff," Bi-Qing said.

She has since made the jump from that small personal telescope to work on projects using the 2.7-meter Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory.

Bi-Qing loves to travel, and has made trips to Germany, Luxemburg, the Canary Islands, and the Netherlands. She hopes soon to travel to Australia and New Zealand, as well as many national parks in the United States.

"I love nature and the outdoors," Bi-Qing said. "I like to go hiking, backpacking and leisure cycling." She's also a fan of many recreational sports that involve a racquet: tennis, badminton, table tennis, and racquetball.

Bi-Qing For
John Stocker Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Western Australia
Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Astronomy and Physics, The University of Arizona

Robert Quimby didn't plan on being an astronomer. In fact, as he was growing up, he says he was encouraged by his family to take up engineering. But when he graduated from high school and it came time to pick a direction for his life, he didn't feel that engineering was what he wanted to do. Instead he decided to follow astronomy, then only a fun hobby, and make it into a career.

"I like to know how things work," Robert says. Influential physics teachers also helped in this decision because not only were they good teachers, but they piqued his interest in other ways as well by bringing to class items such as climbing gear or bikes. One teacher in particular shared Robert's interest in the trombone and they would play together after school.

From Billiards and Basketball to Arts and Entertainment

Robert hasn't played his trombone in several years, but he says music is still an enjoyable hobby for him. "Music helps with focus and your level of concentration," he says, adding that his experience with music helped him develop skills that are beneficial in everything he does, including work.

As for other hobbies, Robert enjoys playing pool and basketball and watching good movies. He also likes photography, featuring mostly landscapes because "people are hard." He sometimes uses black and white film but says he always feels like he's cheating because everything looks good and particularly dramatic in black and white.

Robert grew up in Long Beach, California and received his undergraduate degree in astrophysics from UC Berkeley before coming to Texas to complete his education. Robert received the Trumpler Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for his outstanding dissertation research.

Robert Quimby
Post-doctoral Fellow, Caltech
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
M.S., Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
A.B., Astrophysics, University of California-Berkeley

Sharon Montgomery is an associate professor and chair of the Physics department at Clarion University in Clarion, Pennsylvania.

Sharon received her bachelor's degree in physics from Allegheny College, and her doctorate in astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.

Sharon Montgomery
Associate Professor, Clarion University
Ph.D., Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University
B.S., Physics, Allegheny College

One of the first things that Sehyun Hwangadmired about the United States was the snow. "In the winter in Wyoming, we had lots of snow, almost every day, and I loved to go skiing with my friends."

Sehyun grew up in Seoul, South Korea, and completed his undergraduate degree at Seoul National University. After getting his Master's degree in physics from the University of Wyoming in 2006, Sehyun moved to the University of Texas to pursue his Ph.D. in astronomy.

The white powder in Wyoming was replaced by watching sunsets on Lake Travis.

Sehyun said his childhood experiences guided his quest to study astronomy. "In the eighth grade, I read books on our solar system, the Universe, and the life in it. I was so absorbed that I stayed up all night reading the books, not getting any sleep. Even now I remember that night," when he was in awe of what he called "the Wonders of the Universe."

Since attending UT-Austin, Sehyun says he enjoys doing research on planetary nebulae, "some of the most beautiful objects in the sky."

When he's not relaxing while watching the sunsets over Lake Travis from the Oasis Restaurant, Sehyun said he enjoys exploring the intriguing city of Austin and planning future road trips across the country. He already has two immediate routes planned out: one that will take him east from New Orleans to Florida along the Gulf Coast, and another that will allow him to explore the Wild West, taking him from New Mexico to California.

Sehyun said, "I am very pleased to work with Prof. Harriet Dinerstein on planetary nebulae, diffuse gas, and the interstellar medium, unveiling the secrets of the Universe, like that night I was fascinated by the Wonders of the Universe."

Sehyun Hwang
Ph.D., Astronomy; The University of Texas at Austin
M.S., Physics; University of Wyoming
B.S., Astronomy; Seoul National University

The Williams family's home videos capture a 2-year-old Kurtis looking through a cardboard tube as if it is a telescope. For as long as he can remember, Kurtis has been fascinated with the heavens. One morning, as he got ready for first grade, Kurtis watched the first space shuttle launch with his parents. "I thought, ‘that's so ugly it will never work,'" he says. When it finally did soar out of sight, Kurtis was amazed.

That initial enthusiasm still has not worn off for Kurtis. He says the excitement of observing (as well as black coffee with sugar) keeps him awake when using telescopes in the dark of the night.

Kurtis' sixth grade general science teacher, Mr. Lanese, encouraged him to develop the skills needed to pursue his interest in astronomy. Now as a teacher himself, Kurtis tries to pass on his passion to his students. "I think it is the excitement more than the knowledge that is the most important thing for a scientist to convey," Kurtis says.

Kurtis also has a keen interest in music. He is a talented singer; as a member of a male chorus in Arizona, he sang "everything from classical opera to cowboy tunes." He also plays the string bass, and his wife is a classically trained pianist.

Kurtis Williams
Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University, Commerce
Ph. D., Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz
M. S. Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz
B.S., Physics, The Pennsylvania State University
B.S., Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University

Roberto Silvotti is a research astronomer at the Observatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. His research focuses on several areas involving pulsating stars, especially white dwarfs, which are extremely small and old stars at the end of their life cycles.

Roberto also studies cataclysmic variable stars, which occur when a white dwarf star and a companion star orbit one another, usually causing the companion star to donate some of its mass to the white dwarf. His most recent work at the McDonald Observatory involves studying HS2201+2610, a distant old star orbited by a large planet.

Roberto Silvotti
Researcher, Observatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte (Italy)

Dean Chandler loves astronomy, he says, even though he's "not a vocational astronomer." Dean spends most of his daylight hours doing electronic design work for the consulting firm that he founded. The other things that occupy most of his time are the wonders of the night sky.

As the current president of the Central Texas Astronomical Society, Dean is able to nourish his love for astronomy while also earning money from his day job.

"I got interested in the business side of life," he says of the consulting firm he owns. "But I've always been interested in astronomy, too. It helps us ask those big questions: who we are, where we're going."

Dean grew up in Chicago, where he had an interest in science from a very young age. When he was 12 years old, he joined the Chicago Astronomical Society, which met at the local planetarium. He graduated from Harvard College and received his PhD in chemistry from Northwestern University. He then taught college chemistry for 10 years before starting his own business.

"Astronomy is a great hobby because it's so fun," Dean says. "It's one of the only ways to do science with other people, as opposed to chemistry, where most of your work is done in a lab. For instance, I like to take people with me when I observe. It helps to pass the time, and it's lots more fun that way."

As the president of the Central Texas Astronomical Society, Dean aims to help young people learn about and love astronomy from a young age like he did. The Society conducts educational outreach programs in classrooms in the Temple, Waco, and Killeen region of Central Texas, as well as collaborating with McDonald and conducting investigations with their own research-quality 24-inch telescope.

Dean and his wife, Gail, live in Temple, Texas, where they love to go ballroom dancing. They share their home with their dog, Rascal, and their cat, Sadie.

Dean Chandler
Amateur Astronomer, Temple, TX
Ph.D., Chemistry, Northwestern University
B.S., Chemistry, Harvard University

Luz Marina Cairos Barreto, "Luzma" to her friends, knows what it's like to be away from home. She grew up in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, where she was born five minutes from the beach and learned to love swimming. However, she is currently working in a post-doctoral position at the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam in Germany, when she isn't traveling for astronomy.

"This job allows us to live with a certain kind of freedom," Luzma says. "Usually, one can move from one country to another, and one can decide when and how long." Luzma also enjoys other aspects of the job. "All the academic jobs have a clear advantage," she says. "We are always learning. That's fun."

However, the job does have one downside in Luzma's eyes. "We definitely work too much with computers," she says. But staying up late observing isn't a downside at all, as long as she has some music to listen to or somebody to talk to. "I never go early to bed, so it is not so difficult for me," she says.

As a child, Luzma never thought she would study astronomy. "I wanted to study science," she says, "but probably mathematics or physics. Astronomy came to mind only after I was already at the university."

She thinks she would probably be a journalist or a writer if she weren't an astronomer. "In my free time mostly I read, write, and watch movies," she says. "But always in the cinema. I do not like watching TV."

Luzma Cairos Barreto
Humboldt Fellow, Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam
Ph.D., Astrophysics, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
B.S., Physics, La Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife)

There was a time in Anna Frebel's life when she had to choose between sewing and science.

"I love fashion design," Anna said. "I love to take a piece of cloth and make some fancy clothes out of it." She seriously considered fashion design as a career option in the past. "Everyone told me that since I was a girl, I should go ahead and become a fashion designer, because girls don't do science or anything like that. But now here I am!"

Anna grew up in Göttingen, a town in central Germany with a university observatory nearby. "I always wanted to be an astronomer," she said. "I love discovering new things and finding out new things about the universe. I took astronomy in the seventh year of school, and I had a test where I had to draw the constellations on a blue piece of paper with a white pencil. I loved it."

Now working as an astronomer at McDonald Observatory, Anna made an important discovery earlier this year. She used a telescope in Chile to identify one of the oldest stars ever found and calculated its age: more than 13.2 billion years, almost as old as the universe itself, whose age is believed to be 13.7 billion years.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Anna loves Indian food, vegetarian pizza with extra cheese and mushrooms, and dancing Argentine tango with the University of Texas Tango Club. "I don't have as much time to practice tango as much as I would like to because I travel so much," Anna said. "But I do like to see new places."

Her favorite place on Earth, however, has nothing to do with astronomy: She has spent a few vacations in the Whitsunday islands off the northeast coast of Australia and fell in love with the beautiful scenery and the Great Barrier Reef. "You can just jump in the beautiful blue water and swim with clownfish and all these bright tropical fish," Anna said. "It's heaven on Earth."

Anna Frebel
Clay Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Ph.D., Australian National University
B.S., Physics, University of Freiburg, Germany

Graduate student Jeremy Murphy loves astronomy because it's dark and mysterious. "Astronomy is one of the oldest and most mysterious of all the sciences, and dark matter is one of the most mysterious aspects of astronomy," Jeremy said. "I love working on something that people know so little about, because every discovery is brand new and exciting." Jeremy's work involves dark matter, the non-shining objects in space that we can't see but detect by their mass.

Jeremy grew up in Plentywood, Montana, a town, he says, "where everyone knew everyone." Unlike many astronomers, he said, he didn't have an epiphany moment where he knew he had to be an astronomer. "I just sort of fell into it," he said. "And now I love it."

Photographer
When Jeremy isn't doing astronomy, he loves to take photographs. "I have a darkroom set up in a closet at home, and I do all my black-and-white printing," he said. His favorite subject matter to photograph is all the junk at a junkyard. "There's always something interesting to see," he said. "Nature photographs are too hard; they require so much time to get it right. And I don't like portraits because people are so uncomfortable having their pictures taken. Junk never complains, and for some reason, junkyards have the most amazing angles of light for photographs."

A Crafty Pastime
Jeremy also enjoys making wallets, coin purses and checkbook covers out of gaffer tape, the slightly thinner and softer cousin of duct tape. "There really is an art to it," he said. "You can tell when people haven't been making these wallets a lot because they're still using duct tape, or because they don't care about the seams," he said, gesturing to a wide roll of gray tape and two regular-sized, but oddly colored, rolls of tape. "With this big one I can make a seamless wallet. It's going to be great."

Jeremy also loves the Boston Red Sox baseball team and hiking in the wilderness. "Anywhere but the desert," he says, "because in the desert you have to carry all your water. And then you can't stay as long."

Jeremy Murphy
Graduate student, Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, The University of Texas at Austin

Simon Schuler grew up in Hastings, a small town in southern Michigan, but now he finds himself on the other side of the world. Simon is working in a post-doctoral fellowship at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. He enjoys his job, he says, though he says the challenges of living in a foreign country were hard to adjust to at first.

"I'm having to learn Spanish very quickly," Simon said. "But the people are very nice and patient with me while I figure things out."

The one inexcusable thing about Chile, he says, is the quality of the beer. "Oh, it's terrible!" he said. "But the wine is great. So I've come to appreciate the local wine a lot."

When Simon isn't working at the observatory, he enjoys running, eating Chinese, Thai, or Japanese food and watching sports.

"Since I'm in Chile, there's always a soccer game on somewhere," he said. "I've really gotten into soccer from being down here."

Simon wasn't always interested in astronomy. In fact, he studied physics all through college until one day he decided to switch gears.

"I was reading a lot about physics, and I just naturally gravitated toward astronomy," Simon said. "Learning about one often leads you to the other. But I was fascinated by the vastness of astronomy. It includes and encompasses parts of so many other sciences, trying to answer the questions of the universe."

Simon has been a part of some interesting discoveries in the astronomy world lately. One of his latest projects included measuring an abundance of fluorine in a very old metal-poor star, which answered some questions about how carbon was formed in the oldest stars.

"What I love about astronomy is that it's essentially trying to find a better understanding of who we are, what our place is in the galaxy and the universe," Simon said. "What could be better than that?"

Simon Schuler
Leo Goldberg Post-Doctoral Fellow, Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory
Leo Goldberg Fellow, National Optical Astronomy Observatory
Ph.D., Physics, Clemson University
M.S., Physics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
B.S., Physics, University of Miami

Artie Hatzes is an American astronomer who works as a professor in Germany. For many years prior, he worked at McDonald Observatory, collaborating with Bill Cochran on searches for extrasolar planets. Artie still frequently collaborates with McDonald Observatory astronomers.

Born in Havre de Grace, Maryland, Artie Hatzes' family moved to Fort Worth soon after. His family's background is Greek — Artie's father shortened their name from Hatzigeorgios to Hatzes.

Artie enjoys a fishetarian diet, eating lots of fruits and vegetables and fresh sushi. He also loves to sail, bike, and stay fit. When not observing, he says he greatly enjoys being out on the open surf. "I'd rather be sailing," he says.

While at the telescope at night, Artie says he likes to listen to loud rock and roll, and he drinks coffee to stay awake.

Artie Hatzes
Professor, Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg, Germany

When things start going wrong with the telescopes at McDonald, there is a team of engineers that work to keep the machinery — some of it decades old — running smoothly so astronomers can continue to get their data. The head of the observing support team, Earl Green, is in charge of three areas: computing, instruments and optics, and electronics. He helps to track and fix mechanical, coding, and wiring problems with the telescopes. And, to top it all off, he sometimes works at the Visitors Center.

"I'm a jack of all trades here at McDonald," Earl said.

Earthship House

When Earl isn't fixing telescopes, he is working on the house he and his wife are building in Limpia Crossing, Texas. But this is no ordinary house. He and his wife have been working for more than 14 years to build an "Earthship"-style split-level house constructed mainly from old tires and dirt.

"This has literally been built from the ground up," Earl said. "It's like building a house out of doughnuts. Well, 2,200 heavy, rubber, dirt-filled doughnuts."

Earl and his wife salvaged tires from neighboring ranches and junkyards, filled them with dirt, and used them as the "bricks" to build the walls. Then, another layer of dirt was added to the outside, making the outside of the house looks similar to an adobe with dirt walls.

"It's building something useful, one of the most useful things in the world, actually, out of, essentially, trash," Earl said. "Plus, the walls are 36 inches thick. You can't get insulation like that in just any house."

Though the house is now livable, Earl says the living conditions would be "marginal" at best. He and his wife live in a different house nearby, but hope to move into their creation in "a couple more years."

Dog Show Circuit

When Earl isn't filling tires with dirt, he and his wife like to frequent dog shows to show off their purebred saluki dogs. They have had as many as six at one time, though they only have two now: Kis and Tinkerbell.

"The house has been our first priority for a while," Earl said. "But soon we hope to get back into the dog showing circuit."

Earl and his wife also love traveling and Japanese food.

"When I was in the Air Force, we were stationed for three years in Tokyo, and we fell in love with the place," Earl said. "We would bicycle to shrines, take trips on the local trains. Most of my colleagues went to work, and then went to the American bar to drink, and so they hated Japan. We loved it because we really experienced it."

When Earl was stationed with the Air Force in Boston, he took a lot of business trips to Germany to work on radar projects.

"I spent a lot of time in what was then West Berlin," Earl said. "Now, recently, I went back to Munich, Germany, to help with a factory acceptance test for the MONET Telescope project. So it's funny how your life goes full circle."

Earl Green
Research Engineer, McDonald Observatory
Observing Support Manager, McDonald Observatory
Major, U.S. Air Force (retired)
M.S., Electrical Engineering, Texas Tech University
B.S., Electrical Engineering, Texas Tech University

Peter Yoachim learned in college that his two loves, math and astronomy, would never work together. "Astronomy has ruined my math skills," Peter said. "I can't do a formal proof to save my life anymore. In astronomy, as long as you have the right order of magnitude, it's right. Not so in math. Finally, I had to choose between the two, and I chose astronomy, because to me it was more fun."

Peter's love of astronomy runs in the family; his grandfather was a space shuttle engineer. Growing up in Olympia, the capital of Washington state, a town which, he says "is really boring if you can't drive," Peter enjoyed playing with space toys as a child. He also liked to play with Groo, a red and black box turtle he's had since the second grade and is still alive up in Washington.

Peter loves to travel. So far, he's enjoyed visiting Las Vegas and Vancouver, close to home, and in Europe, Switzerland, Prague, Rome, and Copenhagen. He says he was also on the subway in London the day it was bombed. "We didn't realize what was happening until later. They just evacuated us all, and it was a two-mile hike back to the hotel."

Peter says his favorite place to visit so far has been Kutna Hora, in the Czech Republic, which is the site of a church, the Sedlec Ossuary, which is completely decorated in human bones from the ages of the plagues. "That was just out of this world," Peter said. "There is nothing like that anywhere else in the world." Peter also loves to go downhill skiing on vacation. "You can't do much of that in Austin," Peter said. "I've been here a year, and it's hot!"

One bad thing about modern technology, Peter said, is that it sometimes keeps you from traveling. "I have ‘observed' using telescopes in Chile and Hawaii, but because of remote observing, I didn't actually go there. I just logged into my computer in my office in the middle of the night. It's definitely more convenient, but nowhere near as fun."

Peter Yoachim
Science Fellow at The University of Washington
Post-doctoral researcher, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Washington

Guillermo Blanc says he wasn't interested in astronomy as a kid, but that all changed when he was 15 years old. "My dad gave me a book called Ancient Light by Alan Lightman," he recalls. "It's basically a brief history of 20th century astronomy. I thought it was fascinating so I just started reading more and more books on astronomy. When it came time for college, I knew I wanted to study astronomy."

Firefighting in Santiago

Guillermo studied astronomy at the University of Chile. While in school, he worked as a firefighter and paramedic in the 5th Fire Company of Santiago. "I would say that firefighting is one of the activities I enjoyed the most in life, and I really miss it."

He then came to The University of Texas at Austin to obtain a doctoral degree. "Good things have happened. I got into grad school. Once in grad school, publishing your first paper is a rewarding experience," he says. "That's what professional astronomers do, so it is rewarding to see that you can become one."

He's recently reached an exciting stage in his career where he was able to come up an idea for a research project, and see it put into action. "Many times your advisor gives you a project that is interesting, and other people think it's interesting. But this was my idea." He's very proud of having his own project studying nearby galaxies and coordinating a team effort.

When asked on the path he would have chosen if he wasn't doing astronomy he said, "I would probably be doing biochemistry or genetics."

Cooking and Kayaking

Guillermo and his wife Isidora enjoy cooking, especially Asian and Italian food. Sometimes he makes sushi, but usually not Chilean food. He also enjoys playing squash and kayaking.

Guillermo Blanc
Carnegie Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Observatories
Ph.D., astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
M.S., astronomy, University of Chile
B.S., astronomy, University of Chile

Marc Wetzel found his passion and love of astronomy during one summer at McDonald Observatory and never looked back.

Marc has been so inspired by finding his own passion in life that his message to everyone, included in the talks he gives to K-12 graders, is to "find your passion and don't worry about money. Making a living will come naturally with your passion."

At age 10, Marc says he first "became interested in nature." He says he always sought a connection between nature and himself, but it wasn't until high school that he got interested in astronomy and became an amateur astronomer.

Marc is from Arlington, Texas and began a physics degree at The University of Texas at Arlington in 1988. "I applied for a summer job at McDonald Observatory. I didn't think I would get in because it was for astronomy majors at The University of Texas at Austin." As if fate stepped in, Marc was accepted. He started working in the Visitors Center in the summer of 1989. "It's been a long summer — I'm still here," he says.

He decided to stay at the observatory instead of continuing his degree in Arlington. Shortly after, he joined the public programs team. While working at McDonald, he changed his major to communications and received his degree at Sul Ross State University in Alpine. In 2001, when the observatory's new Frank N. Bash Visitor Center opened, Marc became the education coordinator.

Marc says he finds the most rewarding part of his career to be that it's something he's "passionate about and that it led to meeting [his] wife." She was on a guided tour and Marc started talking to her after the tour was over. They crossed paths two years later, and shortly after married. They now live at the observatory and have two boys, Haden and Shadix.

Marc says he is delighted now to be training summer college students working at the observatory, remembering his first summer there and how it changed his life completely.

Marc Wetzel, Education Coordinator McDonald Observatory
B.S. Communications, Sul Ross State University

Peter Frinchaboy says he has always been interested in astronomy, even as a young boy. He had a small telescope and enjoyed looking at the Moon. He also read science fiction books, which further piqued his interest in astronomy.

Peter went to Sacramento State University and was originally an architecture major. After taking some of the required physics classes, he says he realized he was more interested in astronomy and physics. He went on to get a degree in physics.

Peter then went to the University of Virginia to get his master’s degree and doctorate in astronomy. He then did postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin. Currently, Peter is now an assistant professor at Texas Christian University.

“I enjoy being in Texas but I miss my family and my wife’s family, who are both in Sacramento,” Peter said.

Peter met his wife in high school, and they have been married for 11 years. He says he spends most of his free time with his kids, who are currently six years old and one and a half.

Peter currently does research on stars in open clusters. When he travels to observatories for research, he says he likes to listen to books on tape to help him stay awake through the observing runs.

Peter Frinchaboy
Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University
M.S., Ph.D, Astronomy, University of Virginia
B.S., Physics, Sacramento State University

Rice University graduate student Naved Mahmud grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a city with a lot of light pollutution. So he was not able to observe stars growing up, but he says he read and watched a lot of science fiction.

"Astronomy always seemed to me the field closest to what I was reading about. I was also, and still am, a big fan of Carl Sagan, who has inspired a whole generation of people to go into astronomy and space science," Naved says.

In his free time, Naved says he enjoys photography. "Astronomy gives me great opportunities for photography by taking me to many remote locations for observing," he explains. Out of all the places Naved has visited, he says he has particularly enjoyed the American Southwest.

"There are wide open spaces, great color palettes, great diversity of both people and culture, as well as geological structures." He also enjoys aviation and playing poker.

The thing that Naved says he enjoys most about astronomy is the fact that astronomy is in many ways the world's first and oldest science. "Being an astronomer, you feel a kinship with all those who have come before you and stared up at the same sky."

He also enjoys the fact astronomy may be an old science, but is also a very cutting-edge science. "In many ways we are just getting started in answering the big questions that people have always wondered about," he says.

Naved Imran Mahmud
Graduate Student, Rice University
M.S., Astrophysics, Rice University
B.S., Physics, Vanderbilt University

Once a mathematics major, Michel Breger was instantly won over by astronomy. "I was a math tutor and one of my students was an astronomy major. I think he taught me more about astronomy than I taught him about math," Michel says. "I became an astronomer within minutes."

Michel says his favorite thing about astronomy is that you can do real research early on. "When I first became an astronomy major, I started doing research within six weeks. It was real, hands-on research." Now, as a professor who takes on new students, he encourages his students to learn by doing and allows them to start research projects immediately.

In his free time, Michel is an international dance teacher. He says he loves Austin for its music and dance. He is married to a professional musician.

Michel Breger
Adjunct Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley
B.S., Astronomy, University of Capetown

Taylor Chonis loved astronomy from a young age. "I started building my own telescopes in fourth and fifth grade. We lived far enough outside Kansas City to see the bright part of the Milky Way."

Taylor went to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and received a bachelor's degree in physics. He participated in programs for students at Kitt Peak National Observatory and at the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii. "It was a truly rewarding experience." Both projects involved astronomical instrumentation.

He then got a job at the University of Texas at Austin as a junior engineer for McDonald Observatory's upcoming project to study dark energy, a project called HETDEX.

"I take a lot of pride in the telescope itself," Taylor said, referring to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. "I don't know if I like what I see through the telescope more or the telescope itself." His goal is to one day work as an instrument scientist at a major astronomical observatory or as an aerospace instrument scientist on space telescopes.

"I'm an astronomy freak," says Taylor. "I'm getting a degree in astronomy and in my free time I'm an amateur astronomer." He also enjoys visiting his fiancé in Maryland. "She's a graduate student in Baltimore working on a degree in genetic counseling. I fly out to see her sometimes on the weekend."

As well as astronomy, Taylor enjoys sports, photography, and computers in his free time. He particularly enjoys photography of astronomical objects. "I vastly enjoy recording my version of the sky. The images are as beautiful as they are inspiring."

Taylor Chonis
Graduate Student, Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Physics, University of Nebraska in Lincoln

After taking a high school class in astronomy, Amanda Heiderman was asked what she was going to do for a job. "I didn't really know the answer but I said I was going to work on astronomy because I enjoyed that class so much."

Amanda grew up in Carson City, Nevada and went to Western Nevada Community College. "I found a physics professor and walked up to him and said, ‘I want to be an astronomer.' Apparently, people just don't do that." He became her mentor for the rest of her time there.

She soon went on to University of California at Berkeley and now is at the University of Texas at Austin as a graduate student.

In her free time, Amanda is a "live music junkie. I love going downtown and listening to all of the bands. When I can get out of town, I like to go biking and camping." She also makes Halloween costumes for herself and her friends. "I don't get to use the creative side of my brain very much so this is a good way to do that."

When asked what she misses most about Nevada she replied her family, who lives near Lake Tahoe. She also misses how Nevada had all four seasons. "In winter we had snow, and it was hot in the summer, but it cooled off at night."

Amanda's favorite part about astronomy is that she gets to travel and meet new people. "I can travel to telescopes and work side by side with people from all over the world and that's amazing. I'm not stuck in one town."

Amanda Heiderman
Graduate Student, Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
B.A., Astrophysics, University of California at Berkeley

For years, Melike Afsar had no idea she was going to be an astronomer. "I was always interested in astronomy and watched space-related documentaries with a lot of enthusiasm. I just never thought I would be an astronomer," Melike says. "When I was a high school student, I just decided to become an astronomer. And now, I know how right that decision was." Today, she is an astronomer in her native Turkey.

Melike says, "I was born at the city called Konya but I grew up in different cities since my father was a banker. We've now been in Izmir for almost 18 years." Growing up in so many cities took a toll on Melike as a kid. "I've kind of always envied people who can start a friendship when they were kids and have it for years. I could never do that. I would end up losing my friends all the time because we always had to move to another city for my father's job." Melike has also found astronomy to be a way to travel. She was a post-doctoral fellow at University of Texas at Austin.

When Melike was in high school, the first money she ever earned was because of astronomy. "There was a radio show and they had this sort of contest asking people questions and paying money to the winners. There was an astronomy question and the answer was Mars. That's how I got the money," describes Melike. "I remember going shopping and buying a Levi's jacket. They were really famous back then."

Besides astronomy, Melike enjoys dancing. She also likes hiking and swimming. If she wasn't doing astronomy, Melike says she would still be doing something science related. "My favorite classes have always been math, physics, chemistry and biology. Maybe I would do genetic engineering. I am really glad to be doing astronomy, though. I'm just fascinated by it."

Melike Afsar
faculty, Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
PhD, Astronomy, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
MS, Astronomy, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
BS, Astronomy, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey

"I'm into power lifting," said University of Texas graduate student Tim Weinzirl. "I have a strong interest in physical culture. I train with weights — squat, dead lifts, bench press — three times per week and can dead lift almost 350 pounds, more than twice my body weight."

Tim was born and raised in Minnesota. His interest in astronomy was piqued in seventh grade when he was invited to participate in an independent study project for English. Tim chose to do his research on the "race to the Moon between America and the Soviets."

His favorite teacher in high school was Mr. Kelly, who taught 11th grade chemistry. Tim says Mr. Kelly did a hilarious "impression of an egg beater with his legs, at least one time per class." Later, Tim attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa where he majored in both physics and astronomy. He says his desire to be an astronomer is fueled by his belief that astronomy is a "selfless, noble pursuit," answering questions about the universe and "advancing the collective knowledge of the species."

Tim says he believes wholeheartedly that life exists in other places in space, saying it's "absurdly unlikely" that Earth is the only planet to have a livable habitat, and speculates there might be life "under the surface of Mars." Tim says he'd be glad to volunteer for a man mission to that neighboring planet, and predicts that humans will go there within the next 20 to 30 years.

Tim said the most fun he's had as an astronomer has been on observing runs. During the summer of 2004, he visited an observatory in Wyoming that was located 10,000 feet in the air. Another of his most memorable events was meeting authors of the textbooks he'd read in class.

If he couldn't be an astronomer, Tim said he'd be a computer programmer. In addition to power lifting, his hobbies include reading science fiction and playing video games. "Japanese-style role-playing" games are his favorite. Tim shared that he has a natural late schedule so overnight observing runs are easy for him to handle. If he does get sleepy, loud music and amusing videos help keep him awake. His favorite pizza topping is sausage.

Tim Weinzirl
Graduate student, University of Texas at Austin
BS in Physics and Astronomy, Drake University

In third grade, Myungshin Im made a Kappa-monster costume by himself out of carton papers and received first prize for it. "Other kids had commercially produced costumes which looked better in my eyes, but the teacher gave me the first prize valuing my hard work and originality of costume." Supported by his favorite teacher, Myungshin came to believe that "it pays off when you work hard and make something new."

Growing up in the urban areas of Korea, he says he had few chances to look at the night sky and wonder about the mystery of the universe. "I was more interested in science fictions where heroes and heroines wandered around the universe."

Myungshin says finding new kinds of stars and astronomical phenomena is exciting. "I feel fortunate for getting paid to study ‘the evolution of galaxies' or ‘the growth of super-massive black holes.'" He says he also likes traveling to places like Mauna Kea in Hawaii with an observatory 12,000 feet in the air.

To stay awake late at night during observing runs, Myungshin says he consumes lots of caffeine from coffee, soft drinks, and chocolate. If he gets bored or needs to rest his eyes, he will step outside to watch the night sky or look for interesting creatures.

As a kid, Myungshin says he thought about becoming an artist and still likes painting. He says his other hobbies are hiking and watching movies. "Meng-gu" is his six-month-old cat's name. Also, his favorite pizza toppings are extra cheese, anchovies and "bulgogi," a Korean barbeque beef.

Most of the time, Myungshin says he is analyzing data he collects from observing runs, writing papers, and preparing for his next observation. "Making new discoveries always excites me," he says. "Seeing my students finish PhDs makes me happy, too."

As for life on other plants, Myungshin says, "With so many possible places where life can appear, I think that there is life somewhere in the universe other than on the Earth."

Myungshin Im
Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University
PhD, Johns Hopkins University
MS, Johns Hopkins University
BS, Physics, Seoul National University

Anne-Marie Weijmans grew up in the Netherlands. As a child, she says she wasn't yet a stargazer, but did show interest in the stars and planets. She says she read everything she could about them. It was in high school that she decided to become an astronomer.

"I am really glad that I became an astronomer because I don't know what else I would be doing now," Anne-Marie says. If she had to choose a different job, Anne-Marie says she'd like organizing science events at a museum or writing for a science magazine.

As an astronomer, "most of my time is spent in the office behind a computer screen," she says. Working with data is one of the tasks she does that most people don't realize astronomers have to do. "Observing at the telescope is only a small part of the job," Anne-Marie says.

Music and Knitting

Apart from astronomy, Anne-Marie also engages in non-science related activities. "I play the oboe," she revealed. "I'm a member of the North Toronto Community Wind Band." Knitting is another hobby she enjoys, especially during observing runs. "So far, I've knitted one cardigan and two scarves at McDonald Observatory."

Besides knitting late into the night, Anne-Marie says she eats stroopwafels to stay awake while observing. She described them as "traditional Dutch cookies with a large amount of sugar and butter, which are great for keeping you awake."

Small and Big Surprises

Anne-Marie says she feels most rewarded by "all the small and big surprises you encounter every day when doing research." On life in the universe, she says she "really hopes" there is life on planets other than Earth. "The universe is always a very interesting place to live in," she says. "But discovering that there is some other life around would make it even more wonderful and exciting."

Anne-Marie says her favorite teacher was her high school English teacher. "His lessons were never boring," she says. "I still use his little red book of English grammar."

The most exciting moment in her career, Anne-Marie says was "going to La Palma Observatory and seeing the Milky Way for the first time." She says she was also very excited about "reducing my first galaxy spectrum."

On her pizza Anne-Marie says she likes spinach with goat cheese and tomatoes.

Anne-Marie Weijmans
Dunlap Fellow, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto
MSc, PhD, Leiden University, The Netherlands

In third grade, Myungshin Im made a Kappa-monster costume by himself out of carton papers and received first prize for it. "Other kids had commercially produced costumes which looked better in my eyes, but the teacher gave me the first prize valuing my hard work and originality of costume." Supported by his favorite teacher, Myungshin came to believe that "it pays off when you work hard and make something new."

Growing up in the urban areas of Korea, he says he had few chances to look at the night sky and wonder about the mystery of the universe. "I was more interested in science fiction where heroes and heroines wandered around the universe."

Myungshin says finding new kinds of stars and astronomical phenomena is exciting. "I feel fortunate for getting paid to study ‘the evolution of galaxies' or ‘the growth of super-massive black holes.'" He says he also likes traveling to places like Mauna Kea in Hawaii with an observatory 12,000 feet in the air.

To stay awake late at night during observing runs, Myungshin says he consumes lots of caffeine from coffee, cokes, and chocolate. If he gets bored or needs to rest his eyes, he will step outside to watch the night sky or look for interesting creatures.

As a kid, Myungshin says he thought about becoming an artist and still likes painting. He says his other hobbies are hiking and watching movies. "Meng-gu" is his 6-month old cat's name.

Most of the time, Myungshin says he is analyzing data he collects from observing runs, writing papers and preparing for his next observation. "Making new discoveries always excites me," he says. "Seeing my students finish PhDs makes me happy too."

Myungshin Im
Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University
PhD, Johns Hopkins University
MS, Johns Hopkins University
BS, Physics, Seoul National University

"Since the age of seven, I wanted to be an astronomer," Paul Mason says. Growing up in Lakeland, Florida, he used to watch the Apollo Moon launches. "I could see them from my house," he says. Inspired, Paul says he saved up money and bought his first telescope.

As a young man, Paul was lucky enough to have people who kept him motivated toward his goal. "I had a math teacher named Mr. Wei in high school," Paul says. "He taught me that I could reach my goals in life, if I worked hard and had patience."

Paul graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in astronomy, and a second degree in physics and math. He received his masters degree from Louisiana State University and went on to finish his doctorate at Case Western Reserve University.

He enjoys spending nights working at a telescope, saying he rarely has trouble staying up at night. "Staying awake during the day is more of a challenge," Paul jokes.

That hard work at that telescope is rewarding, Paul says, because it leads to "making discoveries and solving research problems." He describes one of the most exciting moments of his career: "I went to a meeting in South Africa and met a theorist who had done some work which verified my related model. I'd been observing a particular binary star for many years and trying to convince others that my ideas were correct." After the discussion with that theorist, he says, "I was too excited to sleep that night."

When he isn't analyzing data or teaching, Paul says he enjoys being a soccer coach for a kids team, The Superkids. He also shared that he has three dogs, six cats, eight chickens and two horses.

Paul Mason
Professor, Math & Physical Science, New Mexico State University
Research associate and lecturer, University of Texas-El Paso
PhD, Case Western Reserve University
MS, Louisiana State University
BS, University of Arizona, Physics & Math
BS, University of Arizona, Astronomy

"I dreamed of studying stars and outer space," graduate student Nicholas McConnell shares. "That I'm actually doing it for a job? I can't believe it sometimes."

"It's like solving puzzles and riddles," he says. "I like the day-to-day problems in science and using my mind to solve a problem." Nicholas is originally from Chicago where he says his parents got him a book in second grade that had remarkable illustrations of different planets and galaxies. "I was fascinated just from reading about it."

His teachers in school were all great, but his art teacher in elementary and middle school sticks out in his mind. "In her classroom, I had a chance to express myself and it was different from feeling I had to conform to the right answers in other classes. I looked forward to the freedom." Nicholas ran track in high school and college and is still very athletic today.

After attending Boston University where he received his bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics, Nicholas went on to gain a master's degree at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently working on his PhD. A few summers ago, he had the opportunity to attend an international conference in Rio de Janeiro. "I saw the southern hemisphere's sky for the first time in my life."

As an astronomer, Nicholas spends a fair amount of time in meetings and sending emails, something most people wouldn't realize an astronomer does. "There's a lot of communicating with people and staying in touch with them around the world." When he's scheduled for late-night observing runs, he has an interesting technique for staying awake without caffeine. "I try to stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. the night before I'm actually observing to switch my schedule. That way I can sleep all day and then be ready to stay up all night."

Outside of astronomy, Nicholas says, "If I woke up tomorrow and someone said I couldn't be an astronomer anymore, I would go very far in the opposite direction and do bicycle repair! I spend a lot of time fixing my own bike." When he isn't stargazing for a living or playing Frisbee competitively, Nicholas says he definitely loves pizza, sausage pizza specifically, Chicago-style.

Musing about life in the universe, Nicholas shares, "I don't think there is anything quite like human life. If we ever come into contact with some other form of intelligent life, it's going to be completely different from our expectations."

If Erik Brugamyer wasn't an astronomer, he says he'd be a dog trainer. He describes his dog Gus as a "Frisbee dog that does tricks." When he isn't training his somersaulting pet, he also enjoys disc golf, which is a combination of Frisbee and golf. For milder entertainment, Erik says he likes reading.

Growing up in Amarillo, Texas, Erik agrees that he was definitely a stargazer as kid. "I spent a lot of time just staring at the stars and imagining what might be out there. It's what got me hooked."

He's completed both of his bachelor's degrees and his master's at the University of Texas and recently advanced into candidacy for his PhD. "I received a High Pass on the qualifying exam which is a big test. I'm relieved to have it over and I can now call myself an astronomer."

"It's truly a joy doing this job. I wouldn't want to be stuck with an ordinary nine to five." As an observational astronomer, Erik gets to spend nights at the telescope, actually pointing it at the distant light of stars and seeing the project through to the end. "My secret to staying up: coffee."

Erik Brugamyer
PhD Candidate, University of Texas at Austin
BS, University of Texas at Austin, Physics
BA, University of Texas at Austin, Astronomy
MA, University of Texas at Austin, Astronomy

University of Texas astronomer Sally Dodson-Robinson lived in many different places growing up. "Born in LA. Lived in Orange County, Utah, Colorado and Round Rock [Texas]," she says. As a kid, Sally says she thought about being an astronomer, but didn't know how to go about becoming one.

"I was really into astronomy, especially planets. I loved learning about them." In school, Sally says her 12th grade English teacher Mrs. Palmer was her favorite teacher. She taught AP English and Sally says she learned to see English with its novels and poems and plays as interesting and creative.

Even if she wasn't an astronomer, Sally says she'd still be a scientist of some sort, possibly working with animals or the environment. In college, she met an astronomer on the faculty at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Sally decided to venture into the field herself.

Obtaining her Bachelor of Science in Imaging Science, Sally went on to receive both a master's degree and a PhD from the University of California-Santa Cruz. She is now an assistant professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin.

As much of her current work is entirely theoretical, Sally says she hasn't had to stay up all night using a telescope in a while. But while working on her master's degree, Sally says, "I did one month of observing at Kitt Peak National Observatory. I was up all night for a month of time." Though staying up all night is difficult for her, Sally says, "I really love discovering things. I love it when I think about a problem and can figure out something new."

Her first major discovery came when she first realized that the element silicon affects planet formation. This discovery has led several of her colleagues onto discoveries of their own.

When she isn't observing, Sally likes reading mysteries and swimming in the hot summer months.

Sally Dodson-Robinson
Assistant Professor, University of Texas-Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California-Santa Cruz
M.S., Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California-Santa Cruz
B.S., Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology

Astronomy graduate student JJ Hermes grew up Houston and New Orleans, and says he did not spend much time looking at the sky. He didn't even have a telescope. As a student at The University of Texas at Austin, he studied physics and was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Daily Texan.

He also took an astronomy class from Dr. Volker Bromm. That class showed him, he says, that "there are elegant solutions to understand things that are happening hundreds of light-years away." He was hooked, and decided to work toward degrees in both physics and astronomy. He also worked for McDonald Observatory as a writer for this website.

After graduation, JJ worked as a reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C. One of his assignments was to investigate the earmarked funds set aside by congress for colleges and universities. He also covered floor votes and hearings on Capitol Hill.

JJ sees a connection between journalism and astronomy. In both, "you've got to try to experience something from a global perspective, and teach people things they didn't know before," he says.

After a year in Washington, JJ returned to The University of Texas to pursue a PhD in astronomy. He researches white dwarf stars. He is often at McDonald Observatory observing stars with the Otto Struve Telescope.

To stay up all night observing, JJ says he drinks coffee, watches baseball games, and walks around the dome's catwalk. "I stand on the catwalk and get dark adapted and sink into what is happening. It gives you a new perspective on what you're doing and how little you know about the universe. You get this feeling when you look straight up and you're motionless. Every now and then a meteor goes off."

When he's not observing, JJ likes to play on the astronomy department's softball team, the Ultra-Deep Fielders.

JJ Hermes
BS, Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
BS, Physics, The University of Texas at Austin

Emily Freeland grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. "I really liked physics in high school and had a great teacher. One day I realized that astronomy was just using physics to find out information about stars, and then I decided I would be an astronomer because that sounded like fun."

Emily found the challenging aspects of physics as a motivation to learn more about it. She explains: "As a high school student, I was horrible and ... often couldn't predict or understand the physics that was going on during in-class demonstrations or homework problems. This was unlike my other classes and I was really interested in improving." Her physics teacher, Cindy Kvale at Bloomington High School South, helped her improve her intuition for physical phenomena, and helped turn a class that she did not understand very well into one that she liked.

Now Emily has a PhD in astronomy and studies galaxies at Texas A&M University. She likes astronomy, she says, because, "it is exciting to discover new things and to use all kinds of different telescopes to do so."

Although she says she likes observing, Emily spends most of her time sitting in front of her computer trying to understand what is actually happening in the data she took at the telescope. She says that she likes that part too. "I find it particularly satisfying to write papers and work on projects with friends because those experiences are truly collaborative."

Emily says she likes to bake. If she weren't an astronomer, she says, "I would be a pastry chef or a small farmer or a middle school teacher."

Her secret to staying up all night at the observatory is eating chocolate.

Emily Freeland
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Texas A&M University
Ph.D. Astronomy, University of Wisconsin
M.S. Astronomy, University of Wisconsin
B.S. Honors, Astronomy, Indiana University
B.S. Mathematics, Indiana University

Joel Green is a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin.

Joel grew up in Westchester County, New York, first in a 200-year-old farmhouse, then in an ultramodern cube-shaped building constructed right across the street. He became interested in astronomy by reading science fiction, he says. This sparked his imagination to question the possibilities in outer-space like, 'Are there really habitable worlds around every corner, as a show like Star Trek would suggest? What does a typical alien world look like, and how rare is Earth? Is it possible to warp through a black hole? What are stars, galaxies, and clusters made out of? and What is dark matter?'

"I loved reading of alien worlds, civilizations, and ability to explore phenomena far away," Joel says. "I loved advanced technology. So what really got me into astronomy was a desire to understand how the universe works, rather than simply speculate through fiction."

Now, as a research associate at The University of Texas at Austin, he is leading a project to observe dramatic flaring events in protostars. He is also involved in projects that use state-of-the-art space telescopes like Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory.

When Joel is observing at the telescope overnight, he says, "I couldn't fall asleep if I wanted to, as observing with great telescopes is a very tenuous process; one never knows when something will go wrong! ... [Most people] do not know how crucial good weather, low lighting, and low humidity are to successful observing."

Joel is an avid barbecuer. He co-founded and plays on the UT Astronomy Department's intramural softball team "The Ultra-Deep Fielders." He is also a musician. He starting playing as a child, and can play oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and English horn. Even though astronomy takes up much of his time, he says that, "I still manage to play two or three concerts every year in Austin, as part of community groups or assisting local high school groups for premiere concerts."

Joel Green
Research Associate, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D. Astronomy, University of Rochester
A.M., Astronomy, University of Rochester
B.A., Astrophysics, Cornell University

Roderik Overzier is a postdoctoral fellow in astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin. He hails from the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

As a teenager, he did some amateur astronomy. "I had an 11-centimeter telescope," he says. "Even with that you can't see much. We didn't have dark skies ... I looked at things like Jupiter and Saturn and Mars and the Moon."

 Roderik says he became interested in astronomy because "it was exotic and cool. Then at some point I went through a phase where I wanted to build satellites or spacecraft, but then I realized that I really wanted to use the satellites, not build them and let the astronomers have all the fun."

 He says that the most exciting time of his career is right now. Roderik is working on a project to synthesize theoretical observations with real ones.

 "I've been doing observations for about 10 years now, and I've always been interested in comparing them with models and simulations," he says. "The comparison I wanted to do was never there. What I wanted to get from simulations is a real simulation of what it would look like through my telescope. Something like this just didn't exist, so I did it myself."

Roderik Overzier
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, Leiden University
M.S., Astronomy, Leiden University

Michael Williams' favorite thing about being an astronomer is the opportunity to travel all over the world and live in interesting places. “I have had the opportunity to visit places like California, West Texas, and the Canary Islands," he says, "and thanks to my work I've lived in Australia and Germany.”

When asked if he was a stargazer as a child, he explains, “I grew up in Sheffield, which is a city surrounded by lots of other cities in the industrial north of England. Which is to say, my home town is in a country where it always rains, in an area where light pollution is especially bad. So no, I wasn't a stargazer! In fact, I didn't see the Milky Way until the first time I came to the McDonald [Observatory] in 2010!”

Sometimes spending the night observing in the middle of West Texas can be peaceful and quiet. Other times, things can get pretty exciting. Michael had once such exciting night. He says, “The most exciting night I spent observing was probably the time I was asked to go out on the catwalk of the 107-inch [Harlan J. Smith] Telescope in between my astronomical observations to keep an eye on a wild fire in Mexico!” Wildfires are a huge threat to observatories all over the world. Although the Mexican border is approximately 30 miles away, the glow of the fires can been seen against the dark skies at the observatory. 

You can bet that if Michael is observing this week, he will be drinking tea. The hot beverage plays a large role during Michael's observing run. He says, “I drink lots of cups of tea! Last summer I had to drive the 40 miles to Alpine to buy an electric tea kettle for the control room of the 107-inch telescope! And of course to make a good cup of tea you need water at 206 Fahrenheit. The McDonald is at 7,000 feet, so water boils at 200 degrees Fahrenheit and the tea here is dreadful. Somehow I survive though!”

Michael Williams
Post-doctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
PhD, Astronomy, Oxford University

Jesús Aguilar is an undergraduate studying astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. He was president of the Astronomy Students Association from fall of 2010 through spring of 2012.

“I became fascinated with astrophysics on the day that I stumbled upon online educational material from the Public Broadcasting System," he says. "Doctors Brian Greene and Neil de Grasse Tyson's presentations of the material were more than enough to spark a tremendous curiosity in me.”

Jesús is interested in the way mathematics, physics, and the natural world relate to each other.

“My favorite high school teacher is my former pre-calculus teacher, Mr. Jim Robarge. His experience in teaching made him a master at creating a 'need-to-know' experience at the beginning of each class," Jesús says. "He would often post warm-up exercises on the overhead that weren't directly tied to the day's lesson plan but nonetheless had amazing mathematical significance. ... I remembered [those] high school moments years later [in my math studies] in college.”

Jesús has had a lot of interesting astronomy experiences since coming to UT-Austin.

“I've been privileged to go to [McDonald] Observatory many times as an undergraduate, and on one occasion I was directly involved in collecting data that would later help researchers discover a new planetary system around a white dwarf star," he says. "Believe it or not, I've met Sally Ride here at UT. Too, I've been blessed to lead a group of undergraduates on a summer trip to the observatory. I think all of these were equally exciting.”

In addition to astronomy, Jesús loves music. “I've played the clarinet for ten years in various ensembles. At the university, I've played in the Basketball Band, the Longhorn Band, and the Symphony Band," he says. "I also enjoy studying other languages, reading poetry, and playing ultimate disc.”

Jesús Aguilar
Undergraduate student, University of Texas at Austin

Katja Poppenhaeger grew up in Germany. She says she liked science and stargazing as a child, and knew by the age of 10 that she wanted to be a physicist. She didn't decide on a career in astrophysics until graduate school.

"I did my master's degree in theoretical physics," Katja said. "However, I was looking for something more connected to 'the real world' after that, and found that astrophysics is exactly the right mix of big questions, real data, and model building for me."

Katja is an avid musician. In fact, if she wasn't an astrophysicist, she said that she would like to be a professional musician.

"My big hobby is music," Katja said. "I play the violin and used to sing in a band in Hamburg. I just moved to the US, so I will have to start a new band now."

Katja said her favorite thing about being an astronomer is getting "to solve the mysteries of the universe for a living." Right now, she says her work is very exciting because "I am working on some fresh data to characterize the outer layers of an exoplanet. More to come soon!"

Staying awake during the long observing nights is not a chore for Katja. She says, "My sleep cycle adjusts rather easily — I can sleep almost anytime and anywhere, so I try to get enough sleep before the first observing night. Also chocolate helps."

Katja Poppenhaeger
PhD, Astronomy, Hamburg University (Germany )
MS, in Physics at Goethe University (Germany)

Ming Zhao is a post doctoral researcher at Penn State University. He grew up in the city of Kunming in Southwest China.

“I was fascinated by stars and planets when I was young," Ming says. "I remember I tried to stabilize a 50X binocular my father bought me and used it to observe Venus and Jupiter. I even tried to look for the moons of Jupiter with it. I always wanted to see what the Milky Way looked like by eye when I was young, but the city lights prevented me from seeing it.”

Ming finally saw pictures of the Milky Way when he was 18, when he went to an observatory. He got the idea to be an astronomer during his last year in high school. He says, “My high school physics teacher was my favorite, because he brought me into the world of physics and I got really interested. He had a strong influence on my decision to study astronomy in college.”

Ming says his favorite thing about astronomy is interacting with the public. He says, “Every time when I tell people I am an astronomer and I am working on exoplanets, people get fascinated and kids get interested. These are probably my best moments as an astronomer — to intrigue the public.”

The most exciting moment of his career so far, Ming says, was when “a [research] paper of our team was published in Science [magazine] and it got onto the major news websites like BBC.”

In his spare time, Ming says he likes to read, watch movie,s and go hiking.

Ming Zhao
Ph.D., Astrophysics, University of Michigan
M.A., Astrophysics, University of Michigan
B.S., Astronomy, Peking University (China)

Participation in our videoconferencing programs requires either a hardware/codec system (Polycom, Cisco/Tandberg, LifeSize, etc.) or a device with an eyeball camera and compatible software (Zoom, ClearSea, Jabber, RealPresence, Vidyo, BlueJeans, Acano, etc.). We cannot connect via Skype or Google Hangouts. If you're uncertain whether you possess the required technology, please contact your campus/district IT personnel.  Schools located in Texas can contact their local Education Service Center for assistance or anyone can contact Lori Hamm-Neckar at (817)740-7516 or lhamm@esc11.net with connectivity questions. If you are registered for a McDonald Observatory videoconference through www.Connect2Texas.net, then Connect2Texas will act as a central hub (bridge) for your connection to McDonald Observatory.

Please register for your Astronomy Field Trip six weeks prior to your visit and plan other details ahead of time. Cell coverage is spotty in our region.

Astronomy Field Trip FAQs

Join or Renew Give a Gift

McDonald Observatory K12 education programs are made possible thanks to support from the National Science Foundation, Education & Outreach Endowments, the Abell-Hanger Foundation, Harry W. Bass Jr. Foundation, Fash Foundation, Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, the Semmes Foundation, the Stillwater Foundation, and Friends of the McDonald Observatory & Orion Circle.

Email friends@mcdonaldobservatory.org.

Questions about Student Programs?

Contact the McDonald Observatory Education Team

Student Sheet

Student sheets are designed for your students to fill in during the videoconference. 

Required Activity Materials Ready In Your Classroom

A list of materials to have on-hand for students engagement during the program. 

Teacher Guide for Videoconference Content

Includes potential student answers, descriptions of content found in student sheets, and links that support group learning.

Pre-Conference Assessment

Actvities to help you gauge student understanding before the program.

Pre-Conference Activity

An optional activity that encourages students to discuss and organize the questions they might ask during the conference.

Post-Conference Activity

An optional activity to help students transfer their McDonald Observatory experience back to their science curriculum. 

Related TEKS, NSES

This is a document that lists related Texas and National Science Standards for each videoconference.

Videoconference Evaluation Form

We ask that you complete this evaluation form following the videoconference.

Well in advance of your workshop you will be notified of a website specifically meant for your workshop.  When you are provided the URL, please carefully review the information provided for your workshop.

We are grateful to the following individuals and organizations for their support of K-12 Education programs

• The Abell-Hanger Foundation
• The Harry W. Bass Jr. Foundation,
• The Fash Foundation,
• The Alfred S. Gage Foundation
• The Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation,
• The Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation
• The Permian Basin Area Foundation, 
• The Semmes Foundation 
• The Stillwater Foundation
• The National Science Foundation.

In addition, these endowments provide sustaining support for Education & Outreach at McDonald Observatory.

• The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation Education Endowment,
• The Carolyn Frost Keenan and Charlie Gaines Educational Endowment for McDonald Observatory,
• The Hugh Gragg Educational Endowment 
• The Lynn Lyles Brill Education & Outreach Endowment,
• The Leopold Tedesco Educational Endowment,
• The Pam and Rom Welborn McDonald Observatory Endowment for Education Excellence,
• The MESA Engineering Education Endowment in honor of David L. Lambert,
• The Bill and Alice Wright Endowment for Education & Outreach,
• The Mary Ann Rankin Endowment for UTeach Workshops,
• and The Mary Kay Hemenway Outreach & Education Endowment

You can help support our programs through a contribution to our Annual Fund, a Friends Membership, or planned gift.

2.1 MILLION daily radio listeners in more than 300 markets nation-wide

250 Board of Visitor members and 1,000+ Friends of McDonald Observatory

60,000–80,000 visitors a year at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center

10,000+ K-12 students and their teachers reached onsite and via videoconference

MILLIONS via international, national, state, and local media awareness

Directory
Want to find an astronomer, staffer, or student at the Observatory or in the UT Austin Astronomy Program? Check the Astronomy Program Directory.

Timeline
Learn more about the history of the Observatory through our interactive timeline, and suggest milestones to add to it.

Memories Blog
Have a favorite memory of McDonald Observatory? Share your stories and photos of the Observatory on our interactive blog, and read others' stories from the 1930s right up until today.

June 28-30, 2022

Workshop Information

Tentative Agenda

Carpool List

Suggested Packing List

How You Can Be Reached

Astronomers Lodge Guidelines

Photo Release Form

Medical Treatment Form

Weather and Map Links

See the full list of locations

Jeff Davis County Courthouse, Fort Davis, TX
Justen Pautzke / McDonald Observatory

Catalyst Midstream Partners County Line
Processing Plant, Orla, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Printco Building, Alpine, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Altus Midstream Diamond Cryogenic Complex
Reeves County, Texas
Bill Wren / McDonald Observatory

The Perch, Terlingua, Texas
Spencer Millsap

Big Bend Stargazer, Terlingua, Texas
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Frama & Tumbleweed Laundry, Marfa, Texas
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

The Dark Skies Initiative helps to fund education efforts and replacements of lights in our community to keep the skies above West Texas full of stars for all to enjoy. 

Support dark skies

McDonald Observatory thanks the Apache Corporation and Big Bend Coffee Roasters for their support of the Dark Skies Initiative. 

Reeves County Outdoor Lighting Ordinance (2021). Updated language on shielding, color temperature, intensity, and timing. Floodlights should be aimed downward. 

In West Texas, astronomers worry about growing oilfield light pollution (2021). Travis Bubenik for Marketplace. 

Railroad Commission of Texas Reminds Operators to Reduce Light Near McDonald Observatory. Notice to Operators, Railroad Commission of Texas (February 2016, 2019, & 2021).

Texas General Land Office requires its oil and gas lessees to follow the recommended lighting practices to protect our environment from light pollution. The Texas General Land Office (2019). 

Recommended Lighting Practices for Oil and Gas Operators. McDonald Observatory (2018). 

Upgraded Rig Lighting Improves Night Time Visibility While Reducing Threat to the Dark Skies in West Texas. Bill Wren and Stacey Locke (2015). 

Cancellation / Reschedule / Refund Policies
Cell Phone Coverage and WiFi
Directions
Frequently Asked Questions
Health & Safety
Groups of 15 or more
Special Considerations
Weather
 

Questions about Student Programs?
Contact the Education Team

Back to Recognition Page

Click the image to see it in full resolution.

Jeff Davis County Courthouse, Fort Davis, TX
Justen Pautzke/ McDonald Observatory

South Brewster County Emergency Response Center
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Jeff Davis County Courthouse Annex, Fort Davis, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Marfa Gardens, Marfa, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Printco Building, Alpine, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Altus Midstream Diamond Cryogenic Complex
Reeves County, Texas
Bill Wren / McDonald Observatory

Fossil Knob Ridge, Terlingua, Texas
Spencer Millsap

Javelina Hideout, Terlingua, Texas
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Big Bend Stargazer, Terlingua, Texas
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Frama & Tumbleweed Laundry, Marfa, Texas
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

JoMommas RV Park, Terlingua, Texas
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Apache / Altus Midstream Tank Battery
Reeves County, Texas
Bill Wren / McDonald Observatory

The Perch, Terlingua, Texas
Spencer Millsap

Catalyst Midstream Partners County Line
Processing Plant, Orla, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Forever West Texas
Keller Williams Realty, Alpine, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

Alpine Visitors Center
Alpine, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

City of Marfa Visitor Center, USO Building
Marfa, TX
Stephen Hummel / McDonald Observatory

• Please note that the 36-inch dome is NOT wheelchair accessible. This program involves the use of a step ladder and takes place in a space with low levels of illumination.
• It is NOT possible to participate in both a Star Party and a Special Viewing Night program on the same night. 
• Due to program length and environment, this program is recommended for those over 10 years old. Families with children under 10 years old are encouraged to attend our Star Party program.

Cell Phone Coverage and WiFi
Directions
Frequently Asked Questions
Health & Safety
Pet Policy
Weather

• Please note that the 36-inch and 82-inch domes are NOT wheelchair accessible. This program involves the use of a step ladder and takes place in a space with low levels of illumination.
• It is NOT possible to participate in both a Star Party and a Special Viewing Night program on the same night. 
• Due to program length and environment, this program is recommended for those over 10 years old. Families with children under 10-years-old are encouraged to attend our Star Party program.

Cell Phone Coverage and WiFi
Directions
Frequently Asked Questions
Health & Safety
Pet Policy
Weather

June 17-19, 2022

Workshop Information

Tentative Agenda

Carpool List

Suggested Packing List

How You Can Be Reached

Astronomers Lodge Guidelines

Photo Release Form

Medical Treatment Form

Weather and Map Links

June 22-24, 2022

Workshop Information

Tentative Agenda

Carpool List

Suggested Packing List

How You Can Be Reached

Astronomers Lodge Guidelines

Photo Release Form

Medical Treatment Form

Weather and Map Links

July 29-31, 2022

Workshop Information

Tentative Agenda

Carpool List

Suggested Packing List

How You Can Be Reached

Astronomers Lodge Guidelines

Photo Release Form

Medical Treatment Form

Weather and Map Links

Gifts made to the Annual Fund ensure McDonald Observatory’s work in science education and public outreach continues and reaches as many people as possible. Hands-on STEM experiences for students, teacher professional development workshops, Visitors Center star parties, and our flagship StarDate Radio program, which reaches listeners on over 300 stations a day, are a few of the education and outreach initiatives that Annual Fund gifts support.

To give a 100% tax-deductible gift to the Annual Fund, donate online or mail a check to the address below. Thank you for partnering with us in this important work.

Mail
The McDonald Observatory Annual Fund
2515 Speedway C1402
Austin, TX 78712

Call: 512-471-3303
Email: friends@mcdonaldobservatory.org

Come celebrate our 75th anniversary with us at a free Open House!

Please note that due to capacity and safety regulations, some events, though free of charge, will require reservations. They are noted below. For reservations and other information, go to our Open House reservations page.

Daytime Events:

Safe viewing of the Sun (weather permitting)

Balloons and face painting

Exhibit of 75th anniversary-themed art from local area school children

Fire Truck display

Award-winning 75th Anniversary float display

Historical display in the Visitors Center

Talks, inside the Visitors Center theater (reservations required):

• The W. J. McDonald Observatory: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, by McDonald Director Dr. David L. Lambert
• Hunting for Alien Worlds, by Dr. Fritz Benedict
• Dark Energy and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), by Dr. Niv Drory

Tours:

• Late afternoon guided tour of 82-inch Otto Struve Telescope, including telescope views of Jupiter (weather permitting). Reservations required. (Program will require climbing two flights of steps at ~ 6800 feet elevation.)
• 107-inch Harlan J. Smith Telescope: Gallery open for self-guided tours. (Viewing gallery access will require climbing four flights of steps at ~ 6800 feel elevation.)
• Hobby-Eberly Telescope: Open for self-guided tours.

Nighttime Events (weather permitting):

Views of Jupiter beginning at ~ 8:00 p.m. (Visitors Center Telescope Park) continuing through end of Open House.

Views of Mars beginning at ~ 8:30 p.m. (Visitors Center Telescope Park) continuing through end of Open House.

Constellation Tours (unaided-eye tours of the night sky) at 9:30 & 10:30 p.m. (Visitors Center Amphitheater).

Views of the Red Planet, Mars, on the 82-inch Otto Struve Telescope at 9:15 p.m. Reservations required. (Program will require climbing two flights of steps at ~ 6800 feet elevation at night.)

For reservations and other information, go to our Open House reservations page.

Galaxy Classification Activity

Click here to link to the activity online

(It's recommended to review the online activity before downloading the following PDF files)

Student Worksheet
Student Image Sheet
Hubble Classification Sheet

Multi-wavelength Astronomy Activity

An activity about gathering and interpreting astronomical data in many wavelengths

Multi-wavelength Astronomy - The Teacher's Guide (PDF)
Standards and suggestions for implementation, and general instructions and answers to questions in Student Guide.

Student Guide and Worksheet
The main activity sheet - also contains information on the telescopes used to gather images on the galaxy cards.

False Coloring
Student exercise on resolution and false colors

Accompanying PowerPoint
Many color images of galaxies, as well as an evaluation exercise, are included in the PowerPoint presentation.

Galaxy Cards

Cards with galaxy images, used in the student worksheet

• Black images on a white background (that is, negatives) are provided in this PDF document (Recommended, saves toner and paper), OR
• White images on a black background are provided in this PDF document
• An extended set for evaluation are provided in this PDF document (optional)

Optional Materials

Telescopes used to obtain the images are provided in this PDF document

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills
TEKS related to the activity

Lives of Stars Activity

A "dramatic" look at Stellar Evolution

Stellar Evolution - The Teacher's Guide
Standards and suggestions for implementation, and general instructions and answers to questions in Student Guide

Student Guide and Worksheet
The "drama" for students plus worksheets

The Galaxies and Cosmos Exporer Tool
An online tool to investigate galaxies

Support from NASA grants NAG5-13063 and NASA NNG 06GB99G, NSF grant AST-0607748 to Principle Investigator Dr. Shardha Jogee and a Faculty And Student Teams for Technology (FAST Tex) award from the University of Texas Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment (DIIA) is gratefully acknowledged.

For all student groups, we offer the three main activities:

SkyTips is a monthly email newsletter for visitors to McDonald Observatory and StarDate Online. Each issue features stargazing highlights, upcoming StarDate radio program descriptions, and other news.

Frequently Asked Questions

Planning your trip:

• Will the Observatory/Visitors Center be open on (holidays, special dates, etc.)?
• When is the best time to visit the Observatory?
• How do I get to McDonald Observatory?
• Are there places to eat at the Observatory?
• Are there RV hook-ups and/or camping facilities at the Observatory?
• Can I refuel my vehicle (gas/diesel/electricity) at the Observatory?
• Why do the Star Parties start so late in the Summer?
• Is the Observatory wheelchair accessible?
• What is your policy on pets at your programs?
• Can I see the Aurora Borealis from the Observatory?

About our programs:

• Can large groups join public programs?
• Are Star Parties canceled on cloudy or rainy nights?
• I don't have a telescope, can I still join a Star Party?
• Do you offer a discount for students/faculty/staff of the University of Texas?
• Will we see live views from the research telescopes?

Answers to the FAQs

Are Star Parties canceled on cloudy or rainy nights?

Generally, no.  For our Star Party program, we will assess the weather throughout the day and, to the best of our ability, make a judgement call on the likely weather that evening.  If inclement weather (clouds, precipitation, wind, cold temperatures) is expected during the program, we will attempt to contact you (text message, email) no less than two hours before program start time to let you know that we may offer alternative programming in lieu of live views of astronomical objects.  In this case, you will be given the chance to cancel your Star Party reservation preemptively and would receive a refund (less $3 admin fee) for your program.

Is the Observatory wheelchair accessible?

All spaces at the Visitors Center are ADA accessible.

Will the Observatory/Visitors Center be open on (holidays, special dates, etc.)?

The Visitors Center is closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Day, and New Years' Eve and Day. 

When is the best time to visit the Observatory?

Typically Autumn brings us our most consistently clear skies. July, August, and early September tend to be the rainy season, although generally the rain occurs in the afternoon. If you plan on attending a Star Party, consider the phase of the Moon. With the Moon at any phase between several days before First Quarter and 3 or 4 days past Full, bright moonlight limits our ability to observe faint objects but, of course, gives us great views of the Moon itself. You can see a calendar of Moon phases at StarDate Online to help you make your plans. Over the next few years, Summer/Fall will be the best time for seeing Saturn and Jupiter. 

Why do the Star Parties start so late in the Summer?

During the Summer months, it is not dark enough to start a Star Party until nearly 10:00 P.M. The Observatory is located very far west in the Central Time zone, so while we are in the same time zone as Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin, the times of sunrise and sunset are very different. In fact, the Sun sets at the Observatory almost an hour later than it does in Houston.  Daylight Saving Time makes this situation worse.

I don't have a telescope, can I still join a Star Party?

Having a telescope is not necessary ... we've got quite a few. Come on up and join us for a tour of the night sky. All you really need is a desire to learn about the night sky. Binoculars can help as well (but, once again, they aren't necessary.)

 What is your policy on pets at your programs?

As much as most of us would love to welcome our four-legged furry friends, UT policy, in accordance with the State Attorney's General Office, does not allow pets (including emotional, comfort, etc., therapy/support animals) in Observatory buildings or in indoor/at outdoor public program venues. In accordance with federal regulations, trained service animals accompanying their handlers/owners are welcome.

 Are there places to eat at the Observatory?

There is no public food service at the Observatory. Fort Davis offers restaurants with a variety of food. There are several roadside picnic areas nearby on Hwy 118 (two towards Fort Davis, about 1/2 mile and 2 miles, and another about 1/2 mile towards Kent.) A very nice picnic area, called the Lawrence E. Wood Roadside Rest Area, is about 8 miles northwest of McDonald towards Kent along Hwy 118.

Are there RV hook-ups and/or camping facilities at the Observatory?

The Observatory is a University of Texas research facility and is not associated with the State/National Park systems. Overnight camping/RVing on Observatory grounds is NOT permitted. Please check the official Fort Davis website for a list of area accommodations.

Can large groups join the regular public programs?

Groups are more than welcome to join us for any of our programs. Making online reservations is the best way to ensure your group's participation. Please note that our most popular programs sell out quickly, so groups will want to make reservations as early as possible.

I'm interested is seeing the Aurora Borealis, when can I come to the Observatory to see them?

The Aurora Borealis is only rarely seen at latitudes below 35 degrees. The Observatory is at 30 degrees north, so seeing the aurorae here is quite rare, happening perhaps only once or twice every solar cycle (approx. 11 years.) Typically, solar and geomagnetic activity must be at an extreme maximum for us to see any activity at all and is difficult, at best, to predict. An excellent resource for learning more about such activity is the NASA supported site SpaceWeather.com.

Do you offer a discount for students/faculty/staff of the University of Texas?

The Visitors Center offers a discount to current UT students, staff, and faculty with a current valid UT ID. To receive this discount, request passes for CURRENT UT students, staff, or faculty under the "Military/Senior(65+)" category in the reservations section of your program of interest.

Will we see live views from the research telescopes?

No. Astronomers at McDonald use scientific instrumentation for their reserach, which output large data sets (streams of numbers). While these data are beautiful to the scientists, they're pretty boring for the layman.  The telescopes we use for our Star Parties are optimized for visual use (looking through), and we're confident that you will be amazed at the images they produce.

Can I refuel my vehicle (gas/diesel/electricity) at the Observatory?

There are no fuels (gasoline/diesel) available at the Observatory.  The nearest standard fueling stations are in Fort Davis, 15 miles away.  There are no electric vehicle chargers at the Observatory, however there are some in the Fort Davis-Alpine-Marfa area.  Consult a service such as PlugShare, and please check with the listed providers before making your trip.

The following activities are available for groups of 30 students and fewer. The activity you choose requires students to work in cooperative groups to explore concepts and practice science skills at a deeper level. We are happy to assist you in choosing the most appropriate classroom activity for your students. Recently we have added new activities that focus students' learning on our star, the Sun.

Thanks. We have received your Student Field Experience reservation request. The General Student Field Experience takes approximately three hours. Please allow extra time for morning programs that go through the lunch hour (+45 minutes), optional classroom enrichment activity for groups of 30 or fewer students (+1 hour), and extra transition times for groups of over 40 students (+30 minutes). We will be contacting you via email or phone to inform you of your approved date of visit, arrival time, and schedule of activities.

Dust is all around us: at home, on Earth, and in space. Explore the properties of dust and the astronomical research of dust in space with these three inquiry based activities from McDonald Observatory.

Resources
About the Spitzer Space Telescope
Dust in your Home and Dust in Space
Resources
Resources and activities for grades K-8 in Spanish
StarDate and Universo radio shows

Activities for grades K - 8
K-2 Dust Hunt
An extension to Dust Hunt is a story sequence activity called Dusty and Ashley's Big Adventure
For this activity, you will also need a picture page.
3-5 How is the Mystery Substance Like Interstellar Dust?
6-8 Properties of Dust

Activity for grades 9-12
"From Molecular Cores to Stars" student guide and teacher guide.

In addition to the PDF files (linked above), you must also download a PowerPoint presentation (Windows or Mac), and two movies: 1994-24-a-low_mpeg.mpg and 2001-13-b-low_mpeg.mpg. The PowerPoint file and both movies must be saved in the same folder on your PC's hard drive. If you do not have Microsoft PowerPoint installed on your computer, please download the presentation in PDF format here.

These activities explore the technology behind the Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

Human HET
TEKS alignments

Challenge 1: Segmented Mirrors (PDF)
The goal of Challenge 1 is to determine a cost-effictive configuration for a primary mirror. Participants experiment with several mirror arrangements to manximize the reflective surface area and minimize the total cost.

•Mirror models
•Mirror cost chart

Challenge 2: Mirror Array (PDF)
The goal of Challenge 2 is to determine the arrangement of the mirror segments. Some teachers direct the formation of an arc while one stands at the center of curvature. They use a string as the arc radius in order to determine the distance to each mirror segment. Other teachers stand along the arc line holding small flat mirrors.

Challenge 3: Mirror Alignment (PDF)
The goal of Challenge 3 is to align the mirror segments so that they work together as a single large mirror. Each mirror on the HET can move in three ways: tip, tilt, and piston. Members of the mirror arc must move their mirrors into alignment, then hold the mirrors steady.

Challenge 4: Stay Focused (PDF)
The goal of Challenge 4 is to discover why a tracker is needed to follow a star across the sky as Earth rotates beneath the telescope.

Optic Fiber (PDF)
TEKS alignments

Students explore total internal reflection using water, dairy creamer, and a small laser.

For further information, contact Mary Kay Hemenway.

Challenge 1: Segmented Mirror

Students discover through problem-based learning the cost-effective nature of HET’s mirror array. By solving problems, the students exercise science process skills, apply mathematical knowledge, and test solutions. They discover that instead of a single large mirror, many smaller mirrors acting as one is far less expensive.

Challenge 2: Mirror Array

Given string, meter sticks, mirror segments, students form a model of HET’s mirror array.

Challenge 3: Mirror Alignment

Devise a method to align the mirrors of the model HET mirror array to the center of curvature.

Activity 4: Stay Focused

Discover that the focal region of the telescope moves as a star transits HET’s field of view.

Challenge 1: Students devise a way to direct a light beam around an opaque obsticle.

Challenge 2: Students compare thier mirror based solution to a optic fiber based solution.

Challenge 3: Students experiment with a model of an optic fiber and determine the critical angle

Science TEKS Concepts

Math TEKS

What is a spiral galaxy? How are its components arranged? Do stars collide? Do galaxies collide? Help your students explore these concepts with this hands-on galaxy activity.

Grade level: Grade 8-12

National Science Education Standards
Grades 9-12 Earth and Space Science: Origin and evolution of the Universe

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills: Science Grade 8
8.13 The student knows characteristics of the universe.
(A)  describe characteristics of the universe such as stars and galaxies;
(B)  explain the use of light years to describe distances in the universe;

Astronomy
Ast 4 The student knows scientific information about the universe.
(B) describe characteristics of galaxies.

Construction activity (1.8MB PDF)
Background reading
Student answer sheet
Teacher lesson and answer key
SEDS Galaxies Information

Spectroscope

Figure 1 image or PDF	Figure 2 image or PDF	Figure 3 image or PDF	Figure 4 image or PDF

Decoding Starlight

Objective Prism image of Hyades image or PDF

Spectrum sheet 1 image or PDF	Spectrum sheet 2 image or PDF	Spectrum sheet 3 image or PDF	Spectrum sheet 4 image or PDF

H-R Diagram

Coma Cluster of Galaxies In 2006, the Hubble Space Telescope pointed its piercing gaze at a nearby collection of galaxies called the Coma Cluster. Using the unprecedented images that the HST provided, astronomers gained fascinating insights into the evolution of galaxies in dense galactic neighborhoods. In this activity, students will first learn the basics of galaxy classification and grouping, then they get to use some actual HST images to discover the 'morphology-density effect' and make hypotheses about its causes.

*Note: The images in the activity are very large and use a lot of toner when printing. This first version contains "negatives" of the original space images, Printing this version saves toner and provides better image detail for the students. If you are printing several copies for your students, please use this version:

Student Guide (with negatives of images)

Teacher Guide (with negatives of images)

This is the original version of the activity that is found in the StarDate Teacher Guide:

Student Guide (with positives)

Teacher Guide (with positives)

StarDate radio programs

May 5, 2008 - Coma Cluster

May 6, 2008 - Invisible Cluster

May 7, 2008 - Hostile Environment

May 8, 2008 - Nature vs. Nurture

May 9, 2008 - Galactic Giants

YarCom^® Inc. and the Lott family are dedicated to improving Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) educational opportunities for our youth, especially all daughters of Texas. They support StarDate and McDonald Observatory’s educational outreach as superb examples of successful STEM programs.

Diffraction - The Teacher's Guide | 3.2MB PDF
Standards, suggestions for implementation, and suggested applets to illustrate difficult points

Diffraction - Student Guide and Worksheets | 2.3MB PDF
The student guide and worksheets were written by Lyn Del Monte Onato, a teacher at Hidalgo High School in Hidalgo, Texas.

Supplemental materials
1.) Materials List | 48kB PDF
2.) Scans of the diffraction cards used in the activity | 10.7MB PDF

Accompanying PowerPoint
Several optical effects related to the activity are available in this accompanying PowerPoint presentation | 9.9MB PDF . If you do not have Microsoft PowerPoint installed on your computer, please download the presentation in PDF format here.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration provided support for the development of this activity under an Education and Public Outreach supplement to Grant/Contract/Agreement NNG06GC45G issued through the Office of Space Science to Dr. Daniel Jaffe.

Your order is complete! You will receive a confirmation of your order by email shortly.

Thank you for shopping at the McDonald Observatory Astronomy Gift Shop. We hope you enjoy these products with the knowledge that proceeds help educate, inform, and inspire millions and support teaching in the science and hobby of astronomy.

If you have questions about your order, please call the gift shop at 432-426-3645 and we will be happy to assist you.

Thank you for your continued support of science education through the Friends of McDonald Observatory. Your tax-deductible gift* will allow us to continue serving K-12 teachers and students with rigorous and engaging space science resources for learning both in and out of the classroom.

Your support is critical to our success and to the ability of future generations to excel in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, so thank you for making McDonald Observatory a priority in your giving.

We are delighted to offer you a number of membership benefits and privileges.

Thank you for your generosity.

Sincerely,

David L. Lambert
Director
Isabel McCutcheon Harte Centennial Chair in Astronomy

Suzanne Geiger
Assistant Development Officer
Friends of McDonald Observatory
E-mail: friends@mcdonaldobservatory.org
Tel: 512-475-8843, 888-442-4356

Thank you very much for your generous contribution to McDonald Observatory’s Education and Outreach programs, through the purchase of a Friends of McDonald Observatory gift membership.

Your gift will help us as we work to inspire students of all ages to engage in the wonder of astronomy and better improve science education nationwide.

We will send out a gift membership packet in the mail soon and will be happy to keep your loved one connected to the cosmos in the coming months through many Friends membership benefits like a year-long subscription to StarDate Magazine, complimentary passes to the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center, and more.

Please contact the Friends of McDonald Observatory offices at any time for questions about this gift (e-mail: friends@mcdonaldobservatory.org; telephone: 512.475.8843).

Sincerely,

David L. Lambert
Director
Isabel McCutcheon Harte Centennial Chair in Astronomy

Suzanne Geiger
Assistant Development Officer
Friends of McDonald Observatory
E-mail: friends@mcdonaldobservatory.org
Tel: 512-475-8843, 888-442-4356

Thanks for sharing your story with us in celebration of McDonald Observatory's 75th anniversary!It will be reviewed by our moderator and could be posted within a day or two. Posts may be lightly edited to improve readability. Posts that are off topic or contain profanity will not be published. 

Donations for the 75th anniversary in support of McDonald Observatory's education and outreach programs are still being sought. To join the 75th anniversary donors, make a contribution at any level. Thanks go out to:

Mr. and Mrs. Louis Adams
Ms. Ingrid Akerblom
Ms. Amy Arisco
Ms. Verna Arnest
Mr. Barry Avery
Mr. Dennis Bade
Mr. and Mrs. Rayford L. and Linda M. Ball
Mr. Elwood Barnes
Mr. Richard Barrett
Mr. Jeff Beauchamp
Ms. Peggy A. Beckham
Mr. and Mrs. Chris and Sara Bunch
Mrs. Julia Burgen
Mr. Jeffrey Butts D.O.
Mr. Ron Carlson
Mrs. Rosemary Carroll
Mr. and Mrs. Mike and Reny Christian
Dr. and Mrs. Frank and Dee Cianciolo
Mr. Don Coats
Mr. William Cohagan
Mr. Carl Cohen
Ms. Cheryl Cotner 
Mr. John Cotton, Jr.
Mr. Timothy Demonbreum
Dr. Jerry DePriest
Mr. Charles Dobbins
Mr. Casey Doherty
Dr. Deborah D. Douglas
Ms. Jennie Doumany
Mr. Stephen Duncan
Mrs. Marianne Dyson
Mr. David Early 
Ms. Kelley Ferguson
Mr. and Mrs. Carl and Susan Floyd 
Mr. Wilfred D. Francis
Mr. Tom Frederick
Mr. and Mrs. Gary and Clare Freeman 
Mr. Richard Galloway
Mr. Frank Garza
Mrs. Michelle A. Geyer
Mr. Terrell Goddard
Mrs. Nancy Golden
Mr. Charles Greenwood
Mr. Thomas Griffith 
Dr. Jo Ann Hackett
Mr. David Hasbargen
Mr. Thomas Helscher
Mr. and Mrs. David Hemsath 
Mr. John Hernandez
Mr. David Hough
Mrs. Joynce Howard
Mr. and Mrs. Bob and Jean James
Mr. David Kaplowitz 
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Keel
Ms. Hajnalka Kelly
Dr. and Mrs. Phil and Karen Kelton
Ms. Sara Kennedy 
Mr. Richard Kielhorn
Dr. Michael F. Koehl MD
Mr. Parker Labach
Mr. and Mrs. Robert and Darlene Lang 
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas E. Link
Dr. and Mrs. Gus and Mary Lott
Mr. Donald Macomber
Mr. Cecilio Martinez 
Mrs. Audrey Mayer
Mr. Michael McCants 
Mr. and Mrs. Riley and Sarah McGuire
Ms. Fara McMullen
Mr. and Mrs. George and Maureen Merkle
Dr. Robert W. Miley
Mrs. Sarah Miller
Mr. Bryan Moulin
Mr. Dennis O'Dea 
Mr. Michael O'Hare
Mr. Charles Ondrej 
Mr. Roy Pachecano
Mr. Henry Patterson 
Mr. Herbert A. Perkins
Mr. and Mrs. Randy and Patricia Pinkston 
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas and Kathy Neel Pollock
Ms. Sandra Preston 
Ms. Rebecca Rabinowitz
Dr. Margaret Reitmeyer
Mr. Ronald Rice
Mr. Jay Roberts
Mr. Kenneth Roberts 
Mr. Tom Roberts
Mr. Benjamin Rode
Ms. Patricia Rodgers
Mr. Sean Rooney 
Mr. Neil Sandvik
Mr. Dan Sauls
Mr. M. Scarborough, Jr.
Mr. Robert Schaffer
Mr. and Mrs. Carl and Mary Schroeder
Mr. Gerald A. Schwab
Mr. Dan Segerman
Mr. Michael Setliff
Mr. David Shivers 
Mr. William "Kip" Short
Dr. Whitney Shoup
Ms. Jane Sibley 
Mr. James Sizer
Mr. Gordon Smith 
Mr. Larry Smith
Mr. Harold St. Amant, Jr.
Mr. Rick Stephens
Mr. C.W. "Willie" Strickland
Mr. and Mrs. Ronald and Joan Suter
Ms. Tresa Tatyrek
Mr. Richard Taylor
Mr. Stephen W. Thompson, NSS
Mr. William Tullis 
Mr. Peter R. Van Horn
Mr. Alberto Varon 
Mr. Eric Vordenbaum
Mr. William Wagner
Mrs. Kay Watson
Mr. Richard Watts
Mr. Robert Weeks
Mr. and Mrs. Wendt and Kathleen Collins 
Mr. George Wille

To opt out of the 75th Donor Hall of Fame, please contact the Friends of McDonald Observatory at friends@mcdonaldobservatory.org.

Winter 2015

• Director's Message
• A New Superintendent
• Supporting the National Research Council
• Astronomy Day Programs Tap Into the International Year of Light
• Engaging Educators to Affect Change in Student Learning
• Save the Date: 2015 Orion Festival 

Read more »

Fall 2014

• News From the New Director: Taft Armandroff

• 75th Anniversary Celebration Nears End

• Education and Outreach: GMT for Teachers

• Orion Festival 2014

Read more »

Winter 2014

• Director's Message

• Dark Skies Workshop Serves Texas State Parks

• Connecting With Teachers, Students, and the Public

• Join the Diamond Jubilee: 75th Anniversary Calendar of Events

• In Memory of . . .

• Join the Diamond Jubilee: 75th Anniversary Calendar of Events

Read more »

Fall 2013

• Directors Message

• StarDate Radio Serves Markets Nationwide

• Profile in Service: Bruce Boston, Visitors Center volunteer

• Education and Outreach: Grants serve teachers and students

• New Lunar Program at the Visitors Center

Read more »

Winter 2013

• Director's Message

• Corporate sponsorships

• SXSW meets astronomy

• Education and Outreach: Equipping and reaching teachers, students

• Profile in Service: Love of nature leads to astronomy for Joe Orr

• Observatory Prepares for 75th Anniversary Celebration

Read more »

Fall 2012

• Director's Message

• Giant Magellan Telescope

• The Hobby-Eberly Telescope and Dark Energy Experiment

• Austin Area Students Live, Learn, Do Research at McDonald

• Profile in Service: Steve Hinkley Opens Doors for Awe-Inspiring Science

• 2012 Orion Festival Recap

Read more »

The members of the Orion Circle and Orion Supernova play a key role in McDonald Observatory’s work in K-12 science education and outreach in Texas and the U.S. and receive special invitation to the annual Orion Festival at McDonald Observatory in West Texas.

Director's Message

Since the publication of the last newsletter, work in the Observatory's core areas has been ongoing and includes great progress toward two of the Observatory's most important research initiatives:

Seeing first light on the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in the next seven years, and launching the world's most comprehensive study of dark energy through the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX).

The HET is in the final stages of being re-commissioned for HETDEX, and Texas astronomers look to early 2016 as the date when they will begin employing the telescope to measure the expansion of the universe and how this expansion rate has changed with time. With regard to the GMT, the project team recently completed a rigorous set of design reviews and is preparing to enter the project's construction phase. Given the extraordinary science this telescope will be capable of -- it will be larger than any telescope in existence today and will allow astronomers to observe the first generation of stars and galaxies after the Big Bang -- it’s no wonder that the Giant Magellan Telescope is already compelling to K-12 audiences.

Sandra Preston, assistant director for Education and Outreach, will represent McDonald Observatory in late March at the first U.S.-Chile Astronomy Education and Outreach Summit. The goal of the Summit is to expand collaborations with Chileans and U.S. observatories in Chile to support education and outreach for the future Giant Magellan Telescope. McDonald Observatory’s work to bring a GMT workshop to science educators last summer was the first bit of education and outreach done by GMT partners, and we look forward to the opportunities to grow this and other efforts in the coming years.

New Superintendent

In West Texas and in Austin, Observatory staff members welcomed Craig Nance as the new superintendent. Craig was formerly at the University of Arizona as director of Mount Graham International Observatory and served as operations engineering manager at Keck Observatory. From 1997 to 2000, he worked at McDonald and became the facility manager for the HET. He brings with him a love of astronomy and McDonald Observatory, and valuable experience in engineering and management. Craig replaces Tom Barnes, who served in the post from 2010 to 2014, and Steve Bramlett, who kindly served as the interim superintendent during the end of 2014.

Supporting the National Research Council

This past fall, Texas astronomers responded to a call by the National Research Council to provide input on a number of different astronomy topics to help shape the future of astronomy in the U.S.  The papers are online and cover many facets of McDonald Observatory’s present and future instrumentation, training, and software development. It was a pleasure for me to write about telescopes and instrumentation at the Observatory, particularly as we look toward the future of astronomy research and the many doors that instruments like the HET and GMT will open.

All of the above — the work that occurs daily at the visitors center, and the outstanding effort being deployed to develop world-class instrumentation — is thanks to the hard work of many talented individuals and generous supporters who believe in McDonald Observatory’s future as much as I do. I look forward to sharing more news with you in the coming months, including at the 2015 Orion Festival – set for September 26, 2015. Your partnership and interest in our work is of great importance to our overall success. Thank you for contributing so richly to our mission.

Taft Armandroff, Director
Frank and Susan Bash Endowed Chair

Astronomy Day Programs Tap Into the International Year of Light

by Suzanne Geiger

Ask the staff at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center about the best parts of their jobs, and the answer will inevitably include something about seeing people experience astronomy in a way that lights up their whole face and makes learning contagious. This is never more true than when they're talking about K-12 students who catch the joy of science, often for the first time.

It's with this goal in mind that the Observatory conducts the Astronomy Day videoconference programs to students in Texas, the U.S., and worldwide. Though they are delivered remotely, they involve hands-on inquiry which students perform in the classroom — making them a hit with teachers and students both.

Funded in part by the Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation, the Astronomy Day videoconferences are in their 10th year and reach thousands of students annually. This past year, Education Specialist Marc Wetzel developed the videoconference broadcasts to contain content related to the International Year of Light, which was adopted by NASA and other astronomy institutions to be this year's astronomy theme. Through the programs, students virtually tour the 2.7- and 2.1-meter telescopes, make telescopic and solar observations, learn about solar features, and conduct a hands-on activity to put an experience to the information taught.

Last year, more than 13,000 K-12 students nationwide connected with the Observatory through Astronomy Day. This included students from 17 of Texas's 20 Education Service Centers. According to Wetzel, after students participate in an Astronomy Day program about the sun, they are more likely to draw a sun from then on according to its scientific features, which include things like sunspots and prominences. "The Astronomy Day program is so fantastic," Wetzel said, "because it really encourages students to think like a scientist and to view the world through that lens."

He added, "By connecting to an actual astronomical research facility, we give them a real-world experience that encourages higher-level thinking in all of their classes."

Engaging Educators to Affect Change in Student Learning

by Keely Finkelstein

Each summer and fall I get the chance to meet with teachers and bring them the best resources we have for teaching astronomy and space science in the classroom. In the summer months, educators attend McDonald Observatory on-site Professional-Development Teacher Workshops and enter a learning environment that enables their true immersion in science. In the fall, we participate in the Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST), held annually in cities around Texas. Presenting at CAST allows McDonald Observatory to reach more teachers than we can reach on site (100% more!), and it allows participants from the summer workshops to gain more experience with science by helping us facilitate the CAST workshops for other teachers.

This past November, CAST was held in Dallas. As in years past, the conference drew thousands of science teachers who were hungry for science activities and resources. McDonald Observatory's presence at CAST is always welcome, particularly as we blend STEM curricula with the research that McDonald and UT scientists accomplish through NASA, NSF, and other research grants. This year Marc Wetzel and I presented four shortened teacher workshops to 200 K-12 teachers.

Just as Marc tied in the 2015 International Year of Light into his Astronomy Day videoconferences, teachers also attended a workshop on spectroscopy that was themed to the International Year of Light. In one activity, we showed teachers how to make a simple spectroscope to study different light sources. In a workshop titled, "Worlds Beyond Our Solar System," teachers learned about how astronomers detect exoplanets. Another workshop we offered was "Star Dust: Linking Distant Galaxies to Us."

Given the popularity of the Giant Magellan Telescope workshop that we offered on-site at the Observatory last summer (and will conduct again this summer, thanks to partial funding by the GMT Organization), we brought a shortened form of this workshop to CAST teachers, too.

The science that GMT will be capable of is ground-breaking. Engaging teachers and students in that level of science education is ground-breaking as well. One teacher who responded to a GMT post-workshop evaluation, said, "I will discuss and use cosmic time to introduce dark matter and dark energy, and the GMT [to my students]." As an astronomer, hearing that a teacher will instruct students in cosmic time and dark energy, etc. is music to my ears.

We hope to post the GMT conference activities online so students and teachers can learn about the telescope while it is under construction. Toward this end, I recently led teachers through a presentation on K-12 science education and the GMT at a Google Hangout sponsored by Learning Space. This, too, was a great opportunity to help science teachers across the country get a better understanding of ways that real-life astronomy research is applicable to students in the classroom. Teachers who have come into contact with McDonald Observatory walk away with a greater cache of resources and understanding. We hear that time and again in post-workshop evaluations and in the way that students engage with science through our programs. That, too, is music to my ears.

Save the Date: 2015 Orion Festival 

The 2015 Orion Festival is scheduled for Saturday, September 26th. Because of the position and phase of the moon at this time, the 2015 festival will present a fine opportunity the following evening to be in West Texas to observe the total lunar eclipse.
Please consider this extra (informal) viewing opportunity when making your travel plans.

To stay at the Astronomers Lodge or for other questions, please contact Suzanne Geiger by e-mail or by telephone at 512-475-8843. As in years past, activities for the festival will begin in the early afternoon and will include dinner, followed by a nighttime viewing.
 

  business (i.e., not general public visitors) can make reservations via the Astronomy Department travel pages.

Rooms may also be reserved, as space permits, by participants in Special Programs, Friends of McDonald Observatory, and members of the Board of Visitors by making arrangements directly with the Lodge. Rooms for Special Programs are available the night of the program only. The Lodge is otherwise not available to the general public.

The Astronomer's Lodge hosts modest, and reasonably priced private rooms, a group entertainment room, and a dining room. Private rooms include private bath, a King Size bed or two twin beds. Occupancy is for adult guests only (children must be 12 or older).

Single Occupancy is $94 + $10.58 tax (if applicable) = $104.58 per night.
Double Occupancy is $150 + $16.88 tax = $166.88 per night.

(PICTURE HERE)

Also, our executive suite is available (please inquire for rates):

• 2 large bedrooms, one with a King Size bed, one with two twin beds
• 1 shared bath
• Living/dining room with a spectacular view
• Kitchenette
• 2 level, newly remodeled
• Separate entrance

Rates include a continental breakfast and two freshly prepared meals per day. (Rates are not discounted for guests who do not eat at the Lodge and are subject to change without notice.) Please make us aware of any special dietary needs at the time the reservation is made.

Because the Astronomer's Lodge accommodates researchers who are working at night, we ask all guests to cooperate with our lighting and noise policies so that both astronomers and guests have an enjoyable and productive stay.

Checkout time for guests is 11:00 AM, exceptions for astronomers and staff on official business.

Cancellation policy – Cancellations must be received at least 24 hours prior to reservation date. A service fee of $50.00 per night will be charged to the credit card on file for all no-shows.

McDonald Observatory 2020 Summer Internship

Astronomy and Physics students are invited to apply for the summer internship in education and outreach at the McDonald Observatory Visitors Center.

Application deadline is March 21, 2020.

Each summer, the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center hosts thousands of guests from around the world. Our staff provide visitors with access to some of our largest research telescopes, daytime views of the Sun and stunning views of the night sky.
 
McDonald Observatory summer interns will present daily Solar Viewing and Guided Tour programs, as well as operate telescopes at Star Parties several nights a week. The internship is an excellent opportunity to develop public speaking skills, share knowledge of astronomy and physics, and spend time with world class telescopes at a major observatory... all while enjoying some of the darkest night skies in the United States!

Applicants should have completed AST 307 or its equivalent and must have a valid class “C” driver’s license with a current three-year driving record.  Our ideal candidate will have:
•    An outgoing personality
•    Comfort with public speaking
•    Enthusiasm for learning and science communication
•    Some knowledge of amateur telescopes and equipment

This position is full time, 40 hours per week and based at the Observatory site in the Davis Mountains, 450 miles west of Austin. The exact dates are flexible, but must be a minimum of two consecutive months. Preferred start date is May 19, 2020, but we will work with the successful candidate to accommodate their final exam schedule.  The position is open through August 15, 2020.

In addition to an hourly wage, the internship includes a room and daily meals at the on-site Astronomer’s Lodge. Dinnertime at the Lodge is an excellent opportunity to make contacts with researchers, graduate students, and professors from UT and around the world. Interns are not required to stay at the Lodge, but no housing stipend is provided for offsite accommodations.

Applications should be submitted no later than March 21, 2020.
To apply, send a resume and letter of interest to Rachel Fuechsl. Questions are welcome via email or call 432-426-4188.

Frank N. Bash Visitors Center
3640 Dark Sky Drive
McDonald Observatory, TX 79734
Open daily 10:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. (extended hours Tue, Fri, Sat)
 

Visit the Observatory from the comfort of your living room! Join us live or watch a previous program on our Youtube channel.  Also check us out on Facebook for additional program announcements.  Upcoming programs will be announced here and on social media before the program occurs.  Thanks for tuning in!

Moon Tours Hosts: Kevin Mace Judy Meyer Saul Rivera   Join us for a tour of and discussion about Earth's companion, the Moon.  During the tour, your host will show both low and high power live views of the Moon and its many features visible through our 16" and 3" telescopes at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center located at McDonald Observatory.	Deep Sky Tours Hosts: Stephen Hummel Kevin Mace Saul Rivera   Our Deep Sky Tours feature live views of some of the objects which we typically look at during our popular Star Party programs, including nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. The live stream is broadcast from the dome of our RCOS 16" f/9 RC telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center.	Solar Tours Hosts: Joe Wheelock Judy Meyer Sam Jones No sunscreen required!  Our Solar Tours feature live views of our nearest star, the Sun.  Depending upon the Sun's activity level at the time of the program, your host will show sunspots, flares, prominences, and other features using specialized telescopes and solar filters.
Archived Moon Tours	Archived Deep Sky Tours	Archived Solar Tours
July 6, 2023		March 4, 2023
July 28, 2020	February 22, 2023	June 16, 2021
June 30, 2020	April 21, 2022	March 5, 2021
June 26, 2020	November 11, 2021	July 7, 2020
May 29, 2020	July 7, 2021	June 1, 2020
May 26, 2020	April 7, 2021
May 3, 2020	March 6, 2021
	January 7, 2021
	December 11, 2020
	December 2, 2020
	November 11, 2020
	August 8, 2020
	July 14, 2020
	June 23, 2020
	June 12, 2020
	June 9, 2020
	May 22, 2020
	May 16, 2020
	May 9, 2020
	April 23, 2020
	April 18, 2020
	April 14, 2020
FAMILY ASTRONOMY: Books!  Books!  Books! (Archived from March 8, 2023)   We love astronomy, and we love astronomy books!  Join us as we share some of our favorite astronomy books for all ages, from babies and kids to families and adults.
FAMILY ASTRONOMY: Galaxies (Archived from January 18, 2023)   Bring the whole family to look at, learn about, and even build your own galaxies!  If you'd like to build a galaxy along with the live program, be ready with a 12-inch piece of cardboard or poster board, glue, cotton balls, and glitter glue or paint.
Mars Opposition Livestream with Lowell Observatory (Archived from December 8, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera and Judy Meyer, McDonald Observatory John Compton and Kevin Schindler, Lowell Observatory This show is a special joint livestream between McDonald Observatory and Lowell Observatory for the Mars 2023 opposition! Hosts from both observatories discuss all things Mars, such as its science, history, geology, and future missions.  This show also features live views of Mars from telescopes at both sites.
Hobby-Eberly Telescope - LIVE from the Control Room (Archived from November 9, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera, McDonald Observatory Dr. Steven Janowiecki, Resident Astronomer, Hobby-Eberly Telescope Hosts Saul Rivera and resident astronomer Dr. Steven Janowiecki show how astronomers conduct research and what they see in the control room as data are collected.
Hobby-Eberly Telescope Birthday Celebration (Archived from October 26, 2022) Host: Saul Rivera, McDonald Observatory Co-Hosts: Dr. Jim Fowler, Dr. Steven Janowiecki, Herman Kriel Join us in celebrating the birthday of our largest telescope with a panel discussion with some of the staff that work on it! Learn about the history, engineering, and science of the Hobby Eberly Telescope.
Live Milky Way Tour (Archived from Wednesday, August 24, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera and Joseph Wheelock at the McDonald Observatory   Hosts Saul Rivera and Joe Wheelock show you views from a camera attached to a research-grade 16" telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center, along with spectacular wide angle views of the Milky Way.  Unfortunately, the viewing portion of the show was clouded out.
Live Total Lunar Eclipse (Archived from Sunday, May 15, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera and Joseph Wheelock at the McDonald Observatory   Hosts Saul Rivera and Joe Wheelock show live views from a camera attached to a  telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center. Discussion topics include eclipses, how they occur, how to get safe pictures of them, and the program includes open ended Q&A.
What is Spectroscopy? (Archived from Wednesday, February 16, 2022) Hosts: Joseph Wheelock, Saul Rivera, and Stephen Hummel at the McDonald Observatory Learn about a technique astronomers use, spectroscopy, and see unique views of some celestial objects with one of our telescopes.
Family Astronomy: Lives of Stars (Archived from Wednesday, January 26, 2022) Hosts: Judy Meyer, Martinique Pautzke, and Saul Rivera at the McDonald Observatory Learn about the life cycle of stars and view various nebulae and star clusters which related to different stages of a star's life.
Family Astronomy: Live Planets (Archived from Wednesday, October 27, 2021) Hosts: Judy Meyer, Martinique Pautzke, and Joe Wheelock at the McDonald Observatory Watch this family-oriented livestream program which was broadcast on October 27, 2021. We discussed planets and enjoyed live views of Jupiter, Saturn, and more.
Perseid Meteor Shower (Archived from Wednesday, August 11, 2021) Hosts: Stephen Hummel and Saul Rivera at the McDonald Observatory with Dr. Anita Cochran, Assistant Director, McDonald Observatory Enjoy the Perseid meteor shower livestream which was broadcast on August 11, 2021. Unfortunately, the viewing portion of the show was clouded out, but hosts also discussed the origins of meteor showers, their relationship with comets, and much more.
Reflections on the 82-inch Telescope (Archived from May 5, 2021) Hosts: Kevin Mace and Martinique Pautzke Join us as we celebrate the 82nd anniversary of the 82-inch Otto Struve Telescope. We discuss the early history of the McDonald Observatory and the workings of this 82-inch (2.1 meter) telescope. A number of ‘guest stars’ joined us to share their stories and experiences with the first telescope at the McDonald Observatory.
Hobby-Eberly Telescope Tour (Archived from March 10, 2021) Hosts: Martinique Pautzke and Saul Rivera Explore McDonald Observatory’s 10-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope nestled in the mountains of Far West Texas. Learn how 91 mirrors collect starlight, why the telescope spins on air, and who we need to keep a research facility operating. Hosts Martinique Pautzke and Saul Rivera use images and videos to engage all ages in this program.
Planet Fest 2020 (Archived from October 21, 2020) Hosts: Stephen Hummel and Martinique Pautzke Watch this program from October 21, 2020 when Mars was at its nearest to Earth in 17 years.  Also included in this program are views of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, far-flung Neptune, and the dwarf planet Pluto, 3.2 billion miles away at the time.
Jupiter & Saturn Conjunction 2020 (Archived from December 21, 2020) Hosts: Kevin Mace, Frank Cianciolo, and Stephen Hummel This program featured live views and discussion about the close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2020.
Interested in supporting us? https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/support

Although we are currently closed for on-site visits, we are thrilled to provide the following McDonald Observatory programs which are streaming on our Youtube channel.  Also check us out on Facebook for additional program announcements.  Upcoming programs will be announced here and on social media a few days before the program occurs.  Thanks for tuning in!

Moon Tours Host: Kevin Mace   Join us for a tour of and discussion about Earth's companion, the Moon.  During the tour, your host will show both low and high power live views of the Moon and its many features visible through our 16" and 3" telescopes at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center located at McDonald Observatory.	Deep Sky Tours Host: Stephen Hummel   Our Deep Sky Tours feature live views of some of the objects which we typically look at during our popular Star Party programs, including nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. The live stream is broadcast from the dome of our RCOS 16" f/9 RC telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center.	Solar Tours Host: Joe Wheelock No sunscreen required!  Our Solar Tours feature live views of our nearest star, the Sun.  Depending upon the Sun's activity level at the time of the program, your host will show sunspots, flares, prominences, and other features using specialized telescopes and solar filters.
Upcoming Moon Tours	Upcoming Deep Sky Tours	Upcoming Solar Tours
Late June	June 12
Archived Moon Tours	Archived Deep Sky Tours	Archived Solar Tours
May 29	June 9	June 1
May 26	May 22
May 3	May 16
	May 9
	April 23
	April 18
	April 14
Interested in supporting us? https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/support

Visit the Observatory from the comfort of your livingroom! Join us live or watch a previous program on our Youtube channel.  Also check us out on Facebook for additional program announcements.  Upcoming programs will be announced here and on social media a few days before the program occurs.  Thanks for tuning in!

Planet Fest 2020 Hosts: Stephen Hummel and Martinique Pautzke   Join us for our Planet Fest livestream program on October 21 at 8:45p CDT. With Mars now at its closest and brightest since 2003, and not this close again until 2035, it's a great time to see the Red Planet.  Jupiter and Saturn are still prominent in the evening sky, and since most people will never get to see Neptune and Pluto, we're throwing them in the planetary mix as well.   Link and social media announcement coming soon
Moon Tours Host: Kevin Mace   Join us for a tour of and discussion about Earth's companion, the Moon.  During the tour, your host will show both low and high power live views of the Moon and its many features visible through our 16" and 3" telescopes at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center located at McDonald Observatory.	Deep Sky Tours Host: Stephen Hummel   Our Deep Sky Tours feature live views of some of the objects which we typically look at during our popular Star Party programs, including nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. The live stream is broadcast from the dome of our RCOS 16" f/9 RC telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center.	Solar Tours Host: Joe Wheelock No sunscreen required!  Our Solar Tours feature live views of our nearest star, the Sun.  Depending upon the Sun's activity level at the time of the program, your host will show sunspots, flares, prominences, and other features using specialized telescopes and solar filters.
Upcoming Moon Tours	Upcoming Deep Sky Tours	Upcoming Solar Tours
To be announced	To be announced	To be announced
Archived Moon Tours	Archived Deep Sky Tours	Archived Solar Tours
September 23	August 8	July 7
July 28	July 14	June 1
June 30	June 23
June 26	June 12
May 29	June 9
May 26	May 22
May 3	May 16
	May 9
	April 23
	April 18
	April 14
Interested in supporting us? https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/support

Visit the Observatory from the comfort of your living room! Join us live or watch a previous program on our Youtube channel.  Also check us out on Facebook for additional program announcements.  Upcoming programs will be announced here and on social media before the program occurs.  Thanks for tuning in!

The Stars are Big and Bright in the Heart of Texas Live Deep Sky Tour: February 22, 2023 @ 7:30pm CDT Hosts: Judy Meyer and Joe Wheelock   Join the McDonald Observatory for views of several targets from the dark skies in West Texas. Your hosts will teach you about several deep sky objects, and (if weather permits) share live views from a camera attached to a research-grade 16" telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center.  This event will be recorded and remain on our channel.
Eclipse(s) in the Heart of Texas Live Solar Tour Hosts: Judy Meyer, Joe Wheelock, and Sam Jones   Explore the Sun with the McDonald Observatory on Saturday. March 4 2023 at 2PM CST. We will show you live images of the Sun (weather permitting) with specially filtered telescopes and cameras. You will learn about the upcoming solar eclipses happening in Texas. The hosts and moderators will be available to answer your questions about the Sun.
Moon Tours Hosts: Kevin Mace Judy Meyer Saul Rivera   Join us for a tour of and discussion about Earth's companion, the Moon.  During the tour, your host will show both low and high power live views of the Moon and its many features visible through our 16" and 3" telescopes at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center located at McDonald Observatory.	Deep Sky Tours Hosts: Stephen Hummel Kevin Mace Saul Rivera   Our Deep Sky Tours feature live views of some of the objects which we typically look at during our popular Star Party programs, including nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. The live stream is broadcast from the dome of our RCOS 16" f/9 RC telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center.	Solar Tours Host: Joe Wheelock   No sunscreen required!  Our Solar Tours feature live views of our nearest star, the Sun.  Depending upon the Sun's activity level at the time of the program, your host will show sunspots, flares, prominences, and other features using specialized telescopes and solar filters.
Archived Moon Tours	Archived Deep Sky Tours	Archived Solar Tours
July 6, 2023	April 21, 2022	June 16, 2021
July 28, 2020	2021	March 5, 2021
June 30, 2020	November 11	July 7, 2020
June 26, 2020	July 7	June 1, 2020
May 29, 2020	April 7
May 26, 2020	March 6
May 3, 2020	January 7
	2020
	December 11
	December 2
	November 11
	August 8
	July 14
	June 23
	June 12
	June 9
	May 22
	May 16
	May 9
	April 23
	April 18
	April 14
FAMILY ASTRONOMY: Galaxies (Archived from January 18, 2023)   Bring the whole family to look at, learn about, and even build your own galaxies!  If you'd like to build a galaxy along with the live program, be ready with a 12-inch piece of cardboard or poster board, glue, cotton balls, and glitter glue or paint.
Mars Opposition Livestream with Lowell Observatory (Archived from December 8, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera and Judy Meyer, McDonald Observatory John Compton and Kevin Schindler, Lowell Observatory This show is a special joint livestream between McDonald Observatory and Lowell Observatory for the Mars 2023 opposition! Hosts from both observatories discuss all things Mars, such as its science, history, geology, and future missions.  This show also features live views of Mars from telescopes at both sites.
Hobby-Eberly Telescope - LIVE from the Control Room (Archived from November 9, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera, McDonald Observatory Dr. Steven Janowiecki, Resident Astronomer, Hobby-Eberly Telescope Hosts Saul Rivera and resident astronomer Dr. Steven Janowiecki show how astronomers conduct research and what they see in the control room as data are collected.
Hobby-Eberly Telescope Birthday Celebration (Archived from October 26, 2022) Host: Saul Rivera, McDonald Observatory Co-Hosts: Dr. Jim Fowler, Dr. Steven Janowiecki, Herman Kriel Join us in celebrating the birthday of our largest telescope with a panel discussion with some of the staff that work on it! Learn about the history, engineering, and science of the Hobby Eberly Telescope.
Live Milky Way Tour (Archived from Wednesday, August 24, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera and Joseph Wheelock at the McDonald Observatory   Hosts Saul Rivera and Joe Wheelock show you views from a camera attached to a research-grade 16" telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center, along with spectacular wide angle views of the Milky Way.  Unfortunately, the viewing portion of the show was clouded out.
Live Total Lunar Eclipse (Archived from Sunday, May 15, 2022) Hosts: Saul Rivera and Joseph Wheelock at the McDonald Observatory   Hosts Saul Rivera and Joe Wheelock show live views from a camera attached to a  telescope at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center. Discussion topics include eclipses, how they occur, how to get safe pictures of them, and the program includes open ended Q&A.
What is Spectroscopy? (Archived from Wednesday, February 16, 2022) Hosts: Joseph Wheelock, Saul Rivera, and Stephen Hummel at the McDonald Observatory Learn about a technique astronomers use, spectroscopy, and see unique views of some celestial objects with one of our telescopes.
Family Astronomy: Lives of Stars (Archived from Wednesday, January 26, 2022) Hosts: Judy Meyer, Martinique Pautzke, and Saul Rivera at the McDonald Observatory Learn about the life cycle of stars and view various nebulae and star clusters which related to different stages of a star's life.
Family Astronomy: Live Planets (Archived from Wednesday, October 27, 2021) Hosts: Judy Meyer, Martinique Pautzke, and Joe Wheelock at the McDonald Observatory Watch this family-oriented livestream program which was broadcast on October 27, 2021. We discussed planets and enjoyed live views of Jupiter, Saturn, and more.
Perseid Meteor Shower (Archived from Wednesday, August 11, 2021) Hosts: Stephen Hummel and Saul Rivera at the McDonald Observatory with Dr. Anita Cochran, Assistant Director, McDonald Observatory Enjoy the Perseid meteor shower livestream which was broadcast on August 11, 2021. Unfortunately, the viewing portion of the show was clouded out, but hosts also discussed the origins of meteor showers, their relationship with comets, and much more.
Reflections on the 82-inch Telescope (Archived from May 5, 2021) Hosts: Kevin Mace and Martinique Pautzke Join us as we celebrate the 82nd anniversary of the 82-inch Otto Struve Telescope. We discuss the early history of the McDonald Observatory and the workings of this 82-inch (2.1 meter) telescope. A number of ‘guest stars’ joined us to share their stories and experiences with the first telescope at the McDonald Observatory.
Hobby-Eberly Telescope Tour (Archived from March 10, 2021) Hosts: Martinique Pautzke and Saul Rivera Explore McDonald Observatory’s 10-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope nestled in the mountains of Far West Texas. Learn how 91 mirrors collect starlight, why the telescope spins on air, and who we need to keep a research facility operating. Hosts Martinique Pautzke and Saul Rivera use images and videos to engage all ages in this program.
Planet Fest 2020 (Archived from October 21, 2020) Hosts: Stephen Hummel and Martinique Pautzke Watch this program from October 21, 2020 when Mars was at its nearest to Earth in 17 years.  Also included in this program are views of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, far-flung Neptune, and the dwarf planet Pluto, 3.2 billion miles away at the time.
Jupiter & Saturn Conjunction 2020 (Archived from December 21, 2020) Hosts: Kevin Mace, Frank Cianciolo, and Stephen Hummel This program featured live views and discussion about the close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2020.
Interested in supporting us? https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/support

Every night, light from celestial sources streams into telescopes at observatories around the world. After passing through various instruments and optics, each beam of light is brought into focus on a detector. Light sensitive detectors are essential for studying astronomy because they record the intensity and position of the light that has traveled so far to reach us. Previous generations of astronomers were accustomed to using glass photographic plates or even their unaided eyes as detectors to study light from the night sky. However, today astronomers use detectors called Charged-Coupled Devices, or CCDs, controlled by complex electronics, to make their observations.

CCDs are made of a thin wafer of silicon which is sensitive to light, on top or bottom of which is placed a tight array of pixels. The entire detector is usually a few square centimeters in size, about the size of a nickel, and it can be as thin as a micron, or a tenth of the diameter of a human hair. Pixels are laid out on the silicon wafer in a rectangular grid pattern, usually several hundred to a few thousand on a side. In order to fit so many pixels on such a small surface, the pixels themselves must also be very small; each measures approximately 10 to 20 microns across.

The pixels act like small buckets for collecting light. When light is focused onto the CCD, photons, or particles of light, fall into the pixels and are stored there, much like raindrops would build up in buckets laid out in an open field on a drizzly day. In reality, the pixels don't store photons, but electrons. Each photon that passes through a pixel knocks an electron off of the silicon layer of the detector, and it is this electron that the pixel stores. Electrons, unlike photons, are negatively charged particles, and their negative charge keeps them trapped inside the pixels. Thus, the number of electrons that the CCD collects is directly related to the number of photons that fall onto it.

Because astronomical sources are usually very faint, astronomers allow CCDs to collect light for time intervals ranging from a fraction of a second to several hours. During this time, electrons build up in the individual pixels. The number of electrons accumulated in a particular pixel depends on how many photons have passed through it. At the end of the exposure, the entire array is read electronically to determine the number of electrons present in each pixel. This digital information, which is collected from the grid either row-by-row or column-by-column, is then sent to a computer. When digital the value for each pixel is known, the entire array of pixels forms an image! Astronomical software packages can display and save the images for astronomers to use in their research.

During observing, CCDs must be kept very cold in order for them to work properly. This is usually achieved by encasing the CCD in a dewar, which is a type of special thermos designed to hold liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen is added to the dewar on a regular schedule to keep the CCD chilled down to 77 K (or –321 degrees F).

The data collection methods enabled by CCDs have revolutionized modern astronomy. Images made with CCDs are much faster to gather and much easier to manipulate than images made using previous methods, such as photographic plates. Moreover, the small size and electronic data collection capabilities of CCDs have allowed for such major advances as space-borne observatories; the Hubble Space Telescope, together with the beautiful images it sends back to earth, are a testament to the success of CCD technology.

McDonald Observatory boasts several CCDs that are used with various instruments on the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope, the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope, and the 0.8-meter Telescope. Oftentimes, the CCDs are given names according to the company that manufactured them. For example, the TI1 CCD was made by Texas Instruments, the TK CCD was made by Tektronics, and the LF1 CCD was made by Loral Fairchild. Many of the CCDs at McDonald Observatory, such as TK3, TK4, CC1, and TI1, are shared among the instruments, but some of them, such as LF1 on the PFC, are always used on the same instrument. The CCDs are always treated with great care, because they are very expensive. Despite their cost, though, they are essential pieces of equipment for modern-day observing at McDonald Observatory.

The Prime Focus Corrector, or PFC, is the instrument currently used on the 0.8-meter telescope. The PFC takes images of celestial objects. As a prime focus instrument, it is located at the open end of the telescope tube. Light enters the telescope from an area on the sky and is reflected from the 0.8-meter mirror into a focal plane. The instrument is placed at the front of the telescope, in the focal plane. Once inside the PFC, light passes through a filter and onto a detector called a charged coupled device (CCD).

The PFC has five filters, and each one is designed to allow light of only one color to pass through. The filters are standard UBVRI filters, whose colors range from 360 nanometers, or violet, to 1,000 nm, or infrared. Before starting an observation, the astronomer must choose which of the filters to use, depending on what type of objects or properties he or she intends to study.

The CCD detector on this instrument can capture images in a region of the sky that is three-quarters of a degree across, or a bit larger than the size of the full Moon.

Although it is a relatively small telescope, the 0.8-meter telescope and the PFC make a very useful combination for many types of astronomical projects. Astronomers have used the PFC to make surveys of the sky, search for extrasolar planets, study comets, and search for Near Earth Asteroids.

The PFC also allows astronomers the opportunity to construct color images of celestial objects. All individual images that astronomers take with CCDs are only measures of intensity and are therefore black and white. However, with five filters of different wavelength ranges on the PFC, the intensity can be measured for every visible color. These images can be combined to create one color image of the object. Nearly all color images of astronomical objects are made in this way, including those from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Imaging Grism Instrument, IGI (rhymes with piggy), is an instrument built by Dr. Gary Hill and can be used at the Cassegrain focus of either the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope or the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope. IGI is a very simple instrument that performs the following three functions:

Focal Reducer

A focal reducer is a set of lenses and mirrors that reduces the focal length, the total effective path that light travels in the telescope. By decreasing the focal length, IGI also decreases the f-number of the telescope, the ratio of the focal length and mirror diameter. The 2.7-meter Smith Telescope has a focal length of 24 meters and a mirror diameter of 2.7 meters, so the f-number for this telescope is 24 divided by 2.7, or 8.8.

IGI decreases the focal length by a factor of five to 4.7 meters and, hence, the f-number to 1.8.

Why would one want to reduce the focal length or f-number of a telescope? Well, there are basically two reasons: to increase the "speed" of the telescope and to change its magnification.

The f-number is often used to describe the "speed" of an optical system. A telescope with a low f-number is said to be very "fast." A fast telescope requires less integration time -- the time spent collecting light -- than a telescope with a larger f-number. Therefore, with the same integration time, a telescope with a lower f-number produces a brighter image than one with a larger f-number.

Also, the focal length of a telescope is directly related to the magnification; telescopes with a larger focal length have a larger magnification and a smaller field of view. If observing an object such as the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which is large and bright, you might choose to use the focal reducer. Without the focal reducer, you will need to spend more time observing in order to make an image of the entire galaxy. Additionally, you may want to make an image of a greater region of sky, such as a cluster of very faint galaxies, so you would use IGI in its imaging and focal reducing mode.

Spectrograph

In addition to acting as a focal reducer, astronomers can use IGI as a low-resolution spectrograph. IGI has a light collimator that makes the light rays all parallel to one another. By inserting a grism into the path of this collimated light, the light is dispersed into its spectrum of wavelengths. It's that simple; you just slip the grism into the light path and you've got a spectrograph.

Polarimeter

IGI also has another variation in which it can be used as a type of instrument called a "polarimeter." In this mode, IGI is called the Imaging Grism Polarimeter (IGP). The observer adds another system of optics to IGI to create IGP. This addition consists of two parts: a polarizing beam splitter and a half-wave plate. The beam splitter, as the name implies, takes a beam of light and splits it into two separate paths. The wave plate rotates the polarization of the light. Together, these two create an instrument that can observe light of different polarizations from regions such as active galaxies and star-forming regions.

When using a telescope to make images of celestial objects, astronomers often place special pieces of glass called filters into the path of the light. Just as a coffee filter allows coffee to pass through, and blocks everything that is not coffee, an astronomical filter allows light of certain wavelengths to pass through and blocks other wavelengths. This enables astronomers to study specific colors of light from celestial sources. Astronomical filters are made of colored glass and usually measure about one square inch.

Two important types of filters are wide-band filters and narrow-band filters. Narrow-band filters, as their name suggests, only allow a small range of wavelengths of light to pass through. They are often used to study light that is emitted by specific elements, such as hydrogen or oxygen. Wide-band filters, on the other hand, isolate a large range of wavelengths of light. In the area of the spectrum near visible light, the most commonly used set of wide-band filters go by the names U, B, V, R, and I.

The U filter stands for ultraviolet, and it allows light of wavelengths between about 320 nanometers (nm) and 400 nm to pass through. Thus, the U band is about 100 nm wide.

The B filter is for blue, and it filters light of wavelengths between about 400 nm and 500 nm.

Likewise, the V, R, and I filters stand for visible, red, and infrared respectively, and their respective wavelength ranges are approximately 500 nm to 700 nm for V, 550 nm to 800 nm for R, and 700 nm to 900 nm for I.

The system was first developed in the 1950s at the McDonald Observatory with the 0.9-meter Telescope, and included the UBV filters. Today, the UBVRI filter system has become standard in astronomy. Many astronomers use these filters for a wide variety of research projects.

Argos is an instrument that is available to use on the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope. It's a photometer, which means it measures the intensity of light received by the telescope -- usually in very short time intervals. In its initial design, which was later revised, the instrument used many phototubes (tiny glass tubes that are sensitive to light) to detect incoming photons. Because of this, it was given the name Argos in honor of the many-eyed monster from Greek mythology. Instead of phototubes, however, Argos uses a charged coupled device (CCD) to make observations of the night sky.

Argos is a prime focus instrument, meaning that it is located at the open end of the Otto Struve Telescope. Light that enters the telescope is reflected off the 2.1-meter diameter primary mirror and is brought into focus at the top of the telescope tube. The instrument is situated in the focal plane of the light so that the CCD intercepts the light when it is in focus. The field of view of the detector measures 2.8 arc-minutes across, which is roughly the size of a tennis ball seen from a mile away.

Unlike most astronomical instruments, Argos doesn't have a shutter to open or block the flow of light onto the CCD. Instead, the CCD is divided in half, and images are collected using the so-called "frame transfer method." Initially, the first half of the CCD collects light for a given exposure time. When the time has elapsed, the data from that half of the microchip is instantly transferred to the second half, freeing the first half to again start collecting data. While the first half is collecting more data, the second half reads the transferred set of data out to a computer. The entire process happens very quickly, as exposure times can be as small as one second, and it continues for as long as the astronomer needs to observe.

There are several filters available for use with Argos, which allow astronomers to study specific wavelengths of light from astronomical sources. Filters that are commonly used with the instrument include a special blue filter and standard BVR filters. It is possible to mount two filters into Argos at one time, so that the astronomer may switch between them at will. Because the entire slide mount must be removed to change filters, this makes it more convenient for astronomers who need more than one filter for their observations.

Argos is a relatively young instrument, as it was finished in June of 2001 and commissioned in November of 2001. Despite its young age, however, Argos has helped astronomers at McDonald Observatory discover 22 pulsating white dwarf stars to date.

Collecting light from astronomical objects is often very difficult because people do not observe the heavens from a stationary point. As Earth turns on its axis, objects such as the Sun, Moon, and stars appear to travel though the sky. In order to compensate for this motion, many types of amateur and professional telescopes alike are designed to track the stars as they move overhead. Tracking simply involves moving the telescope in right ascension at a constant rate - this follows the rotation of the Earth, and causes the stars to appear stationary in the field of view of the telescope.

For very precise measurements, however, simply tracking on an astronomical object is not accurate enough. Factors such as refraction of light through the atmosphere at different parts of the sky, the telescope structure bending slightly differently at different positions, and tracking that doesn't follow the Earth's motion exactly all cause an astronomical object to wander in a very small field of view. To ensure that this doesn't happen, astronomers guide the telescope on the object. Guiding is simply a fine-tuning of the telescope tracking. It involves moving the telescope in the necessary direction to correct for errors not accounted for in tracking.

Guiding is usually accomplished using an instrument called a guider. A guider is a camera with a charged coupled device (CCD) or TV that records some of the incoming light that has been reflected out of the main optical path. Guider images taken every few seconds or every fraction of a second are sent to a computer and displayed for the astronomer to see. The astronomer finely adjusts the position of the telescope based on the movement of the object in the images. Even better are instruments called auto-guiders. Images from auto-guiders are sent to a computer, where they are analyzed by a computer program for object movement. If the program determines that the object has moved and the telescope should be adjusted, the computer does so. Astronomers generally like auto-guiding because it can be quite accurate, and the freedom from having to guide on an object allows them to do other things.

There are several different guiders that are used at McDonald Observatory, the most familiar ones being the Apogee guider, the Star 1 guider, the MicroLuminetics guider, the White Guider, and the Scanco guider. Each guider can be used with more than one instrument. For example, the Apogee guider is used with CoolSpec, the Large Cassegrain Spectrograph, the Imaging Grism Instrument, and the Millisecond Infrared Astrophysical Spectrometer. The Star 1 guider can be used with the Cassegrain Spectrometer es2 or the Imaging Grism Instrument, and the MicroLuminetics guider is most often used with the Sandiford Cassegrain Eschelle Spectrometer. The Coudé Spectrograph on the 2.7-m Harlan J. Smith Telescope is the sole user of the Scanco guider, and the Prime Focus Camera on the 0.8 meter Telescope also has its own unnamed guider.

The Sandiford Cassegrain Echelle Spectrometer is an instrument often used on the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope. It is a spectrometer, which means that it spreads incoming light into its component wavelengths for astronomers to study. The light is spread by an echelle, which is a special type of diffraction grating.

The Sandiford Cassegrain Echelle Spectrometer, or CE for short, is mounted on the telescope at the Cassegrain focus of the telescope. This focus position is located behind the back of the primary mirror. Light that enters the telescope is reflected off the primary mirror, which is 2.1 meters in diameter. The primary mirror directs the light to a smaller secondary mirror near the top of the telescope tube, and the secondary mirror reflects the light back down the telescope tube, through a hole in the primary mirror, and into the instrument. The instrument is placed such that it intercepts the light when the light is brought into focus.

Once inside CE, light must pass through a variety of optics before it is measured. First, it is directed through a narrow slit, which shapes the incoming beam of light into a very skinny rectangle. This line of light is the most convenient way to create a tidy spectrum. Mirrors reflect the light towards an echelle, which is a special type of diffraction grating. The echelle separates the light into its component colors. The separated light is then reflected through a filter expressly designed to keep different parts of the spectrum from overlapping, and finally to a charged coupled device (CCD). The CCD is a light detector that records the spectrum and sends it to a computer in digital form for astronomers to study.

CE is a high resolution instrument, meaning that it is capable of separating light into very fine divisions. High resolution allows astronomers to see more detailed properties of the objects they are studying. CE can detect light of wavelengths between 370 nm and 1100 nm very efficiently. Since its introduction as an instrument, it has been used primarily to study the spectra of different kinds of stars to determine their composition, motions, and structure.

The Sandiford Cassegrain Echelle Spectrometer was named in honor of the late Brendan Sandiford, a McDonald Observatory employee who helped develop the instrument in 1991.

Light from the primary mirror is reflected by a secondary mirror to an instument attached to the telescope through a hole in the primary mirror. The Cassegrain Spectrograph (ES2) is a spectrometer constructed by the Boller and Chivens company and used on the Otto Struve 2.1-m telescope at the Cassegrain focus. The spectrograph offers low to medium resolution with resolving power of 600-2,500 over the wavelength range from 0.3 to 1.1 micrometers.

ES2 is a classic spectrometer. Light comes into the telescope, onto the primary mirror, and is reflected by the secondary mirror down to the Cassegrain focus. Within the spectrograph, the light passes through the slit, is collimated (made parallel) by reflecting off a parabolic mirror, and, then is reflected by the diffraction grating (i.e., a dispersing element) into the light's spectrum over ES2's wavelength range. This spectrum of light is then focused by a set of lenses onto the charged coupled device (CCD), either the TI1 or CC1. The TI1 CCD is used for the blue region of the spectrum (i.e. shorter wavelengths), and the CC1 CCD observes the red region (longer wavelengths).

As with most spectrometers, ES2 has both spatial and spectral coverage. The instrument measures the spectrum of light from a particular source so it has spectral coverage. However, the instrument also measures the spectrum of light from different regions in the source. That is, it has spatial coverage; slits for ES2 range from 0.5 to 120 arcseconds. Consider that an astronomer may want to observe some extended source in search of emission from oxygen atoms. The astronomers will want spectral coverage so that they can determine the nature of the emission, but they will also want spatial coverage so that they can determine which regions of the object have, for example, oxygen atoms at the proper temperature to emit radiation.

There are four different configurations of the Tull Spectrograph on the 2.7 meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope. The configurations are TS11, also known as the 6-Foot Camera; TS12, also known as the Long Focus camera; TS21; and TS23. The instruments are spectrographs, meaning they separate light into its component colors, creating a spectrum for astronomers to study.

All of these instruments are located at Coudé focus. Light is collected by the telescope and reflected by four mirrors down the telescope axis and into a room known as the Coudé slit room. A pivoting mirror at the base of the telescope axis allows an astronomer to decide which spectrograph entrance slit to use. One spectrograph slit allows the incoming light to follow the 6-Foot Camera and the Long Focus Camera light path. The other spectrograph slit allows the incoming light to follow the TS21 and the TS23 light path. These light paths are inside the Coudé room, which is essentially the inside of an astronomical camera that happens to be large enough to allow people to walk around inside. It is a long room painted entirely black, and it contains many pieces of optical equipment. The optical equipment directs light from the spectrograph slits to the diffraction gratings, lenses, prisms and mirrors that make up the 6-Foot Camera, the Long Focus Camera, TS21, and TS23. At the end of the optical path, light is detected by a charged coupled device (CCD) camera.

The difference between the different configurations is that they provide varying degrees of resolution, or spreading of light into its component colors. The 6-Foot Camera is a medium to high resolution spectrometer, while the Long Focus Camera is a very high resolution spectrometer. TS21 and TS23 are both medium to high resolution spectrometers. There are five different diffraction gratings and two different echelles that can be used with the instruments. An echelle is a special type of diffraction grating with fewer grooves per millimeter than a normal diffraction grating. Different combinations of echelles and diffraction gratings provide different degrees of resolution and allow astronomers to study different ranges of wavelengths.

The instruments at Coudé focus on the 2.7-m Harlan J. Smith Telescope provide the highest resolution available at McDonald Observatory. The instruments were designed for spectroscopy of the atmospheres of stars and planets, and they are most often used for this purpose.

Formerly called the Coude Spectrograph, the instrument was renamed "the Robert G. Tull Coudé Spectrograph" in honor of its creator.

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) hosts a trilogy of spectroscopic instruments, the High-, Medium-, and Low-Resolution Spectrographs (HRS, MRS, and LRS). Of these, the HRS offers the highest resolution; that is, it can discern fine features in the spectra from astronomical sources by spreading the spectrum out more than the other spectrographs.

Because the light is more spread out, astronomers generally must observe brighter objects with the HRS than those that they might detect with LRS or MRS. However, in this sacrifice of sensitivity, the observer attains a spectral resolution that is matched by only a few astronomical instruments in the world.

In design and function, the HRS is much like the MRS. The HRS is housed in a dark, cooled room below the telescope floor which is, as described by research engineer and assistant director John Booth, a "meat locker." In fact, the room that houses the HRS and MRS is a meat locker. The HET staff found that it was less expensive to buy a commercial meat locker than to build a thermally-controlled room.

Because the HRS is not located at the telescope's prime focus like the LRS, fiber-optic lines move the light from the prime focus to the HRS in the meat locker.

The HRS is, technically, a fiber-fed cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph.

It is called "fiber-fed" because the light is delivered to the instrument via optical fibers into the entrance slit of the spectrograph.

The dispersive element is an echelle grating, a special kind of diffraction grating that gives much higher resolution than other gratings. These gratings are generally set apart from other diffraction gratings because they have much deeper and far fewer grooves cut into their surface.

The echelle is the grating of choice for high resolution spectrographs. However, with an echelle grating, you generally need another dispersing element, a grating or prism, to effectively break the spectrum into smaller pieces and stack them on top of one another. Otherwise, you'd need a really long detector, a charged-coupled device (CCD), to gather all of the spectrum.

With today's large square CCDs, it is possible to collect the data from the "stacked" spectra that are organized by the second dispersing element. This element in the spectrograph is called the cross-disperser.

Hence, the HRS is a fiber-fed cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph.

Astronomers no longer look through eyepieces on research telescopes to do their research, but eyepieces are still important at McDonald Observatory.

That's because they are attached to both our Harlan J. Smith research telescope and our 0.9-meter Telescope on a regular basis for our Special Viewing Nights. These monthly programs allow members of the public who've made advance reservations look through these telescopes for up-close views of planets, galaxies, and other beautiful celestial objects.

McDonald is one of the few professional observatories in the world that allows the general public to use its large research-class telescopes.

The Mitchell Spectrograph was initially known as VIRUS-P. That's because it is a prototype for VIRUS, a much larger instrument planned for an upcoming project on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory. The installation of the Mitchell Spectrograph on the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope is both helping astronomers prepare for that project, and to do interesting science today.

VIRUS stands for “Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph.” A spectrograph takes the light from astronomical objects and breaks it down into its component wavelengths, creating a spectrum for that object. A spectrum is like a fingerprint of a star or galaxy, and astronomers can get amazing amounts of information from it: how far away something is, how fast it’s moving, what elements or compounds it contains, and how hot or cold it is.

The “R” in VIRUS stands for “Replicable.” The final VIRUS instrument will contain 145 copies of the same spectrograph, put together to make one powerful instrument. The prototype contains one copy.

That’s so astronomers and engineers can test it, and work the kinks out, before they make all the copies. This will save money and time.

The final VIRUS instrument will be used for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Project. Its 145 spectrographs will be capable of simultaneously observing almost 36,000 individual pieces of the sky.

For the HETDEX project, HET & VIRUS will measure the positions in space of 10,000 galaxies every night, meaning a million galaxies in 100 nights. This survey is sufficient to constrain the scale of the universe to better than 1%, and will tell us whether “dark energy” — a mysterious force causing the universe to expand faster than expected — is a constant effect over time, or whether it evolves. The nature of dark energy has been called the biggest problem in all of science today.

The type of galaxies that HETDEX will map is very specific: the so-called “Lyman-alpha” galaxies. Right now, the HETDEX team is looking for these very galaxies in a pilot survey using the Mitchell Spectrograph on the Smith Telescope. This instrument was completed in October 2006.

They are also making VIRUS-P available for other astronomers to use, and it has attracted quite a bit of attention.

Together, VIRUS-P and the Smith Telescope make the most powerful instrument/telescope combination for a variety of studies. Its unique ability to take spectra of a large area of the sky at once allows astronomers to study light that is spread over a large region of the sky and very faint. By being able to grasp so much sky area at once, VIRUS-P can add up many very faint spectra to make one detailed spectrum. For example, this has opened up the study of the dark matter around galaxies, since one has to probe the very furthest extent of the galaxy where the light from stars is very faint.

Light from the primary mirror is reflected by a secondary mirror to an instument attached to the telescope through a hole in the primary mirror. The Camera for Quasars in the Early Universe (CQUEAN) is a multipurpose imaging camera located at the Cassegrain focus of the Otto Struve Telescope. It is optimized for viewing red objects that emit wavelengths between 0.7 to 1.1 microns. Its field of view is fairly large for professional-grade telescopes, at 4.7 sqaure arcminutes.

The instrument has a fast readout time that allows for astronomers to observe celestial objects whose light output varies rapidly. CQUEAN also includes an auto-guider program to keep the telescope tracking an object across the sky during long exposure times.

"The red sensitivity and no fringing at long wavelengths make the camera special, "Dr. Myungshin Im, from Seoul National University, co-Principal Investigator of the CQUEAN project explains. "We wanted to obtain imaging data to select high-redshift quasars. Usually quasars have red colors due to their spectra being red-shifted to longer wavelengths. This requirement called for a construction of a red-sensitive imager, and to be competitive with other surveys, we built CQUEAN quickly with off-the-shelf components."

CQUEAN is good at detecting red wavelengths because it has a CCD designed to work well at long wavelengths.The trade-off is that to gain efficiency in the red part of the spectrum, it must lose efficiency in the blue. Currently, the CQUEAN team is working to improve the sensitivity at blue wavelengths by replacing some of the optics in the system.

CQUEAN was constructed at Kyunghee University and Seoul National University of Korea from February 2009 through August 2010. Dr. Im and Professor Soojong Pak (Kyunghee University) are the leaders of the CQUEAN project. Dr. Won-Kee Park (Seoul National University) was in charge of software development. Dr. Seunghyuk Jang (Samsung) was responsible for the optical design of the focal reducer. Also, students at Kyunghee University and Seoul National University worked on the development of the camera.

CQUEAN has been used to select 20 high redshift quasar candidates for spectroscopic follow up in the Infrared Multi-tiered Survey. It also obtained images of a supernova in the M101 galaxy. The CQUEAN team is also working on CQUEAN2, a similar camera with a field of view nearly 100 times larger.

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I remember the 50th anniversary of McDonald Observatory in 1989.  I was there!  Here's the t-shirt image that Tim Jones designed for that event.

I was a college student at UT in the early '90s, and had to do a photo essay for photojournalism class. I chose McDonald Observatory as my subject matter. I didn't know a soul at the Observatory, but contacted them and asked permission to visit. I was allowed to come out and photograph the telescopes inside the domes, and got a private tour of just about everything. It was incredible.

The trip fueled my love of astronomy. Back on campus in Austin, I ended up interning at StarDate magazine, which led me to a couple of summers interning in Hubble Space Telescope press office, then grad school for science journalism, and finally into a PR job at one of the national observatories.

And now here we are, almost 20 years later. I'm working with the folks at McDonald who helped me out back in my school days. I'm learning more about astronomy all the time. It's amazing to get to communicate discoveries about the universe that are made right here in Texas!

Stripping and painting of the 82" Otto Struve Telescope dome began September 3, 2013, as part of the overall 75th Anniversary year.

The existing coating is being stripped using high-pressure water, bringing the surface of the dome to bare, galvanized metal panels.  Once the stripping and rinsing surface preparations are completed, the dome gets fresh paint.

A low-emissivity white urethane-epoxy paint is used, the first coat acting as a primer/bond coat, and the subsequent two coats providing the protective and weather top-coat.

Much of the work has been done in inclement weather, at the end of the monsoon season, including rain, humidity in excess of 98%, and moderate to high wind.

As a graduate student at UT, I made several visits to McDonald Observatory. One night in particular stands out in my mind. In the early morning hours Comet Hale-Bopp was hanging above the horizon, looking absolutely spectacular in the observatory's dark skies.

During the overnight hours, any calls to the observatory were routed to the 107-inch control room, where I was running the telescope. The phone rang and the caller asked, "What is that thing in the sky that looks like a comet?" I replied, "You're exactly right — it's a comet!"

I first saw the 82-inch telescope when I came to work here in 2000. I thought it was the most beautiful instrument I'd ever seen. It reminded me of the old pictures of astronomers working at Mount Wilson.

I was so disapponted to find out tours were not done there, because when people think of a grand old telescope, I'm sure THIS is what they would think of. To this day, when visitors ask me "What's the coolest thing you've ever seen here at McDonald?" I still say "Saturn through the 82-inch telescope."

I remember how exciting it was to be newly hired at the McDonald Observatory Visitors Center in anticipation of the VC's grand opening.  We opened only days before Spring Break, and let me tell you that was a steep learning curve those first few months.  The StarDate Cafe served hot chocolate from individual cocoa packets!  

After the first 1,000 cups of hot chocolate that very first week, modifications were made to order bulk rather than individual portions.  I remember thinking that the lines must almost be at an end, then looked up and saw the masses still lined up out the door!  Exhausting yet thrilling days back then! 

Now, I work in the noble landmark of the Otto Struve 82-inch Telescope.  I love the location, I love the view, I am facinated by the "workings" and I am indeed priveledged to be a part of the history of McDonald Observatory.

Snow trees at the playground.

The Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter occured July 16-22, 1994 as pieces of the object, earlier broken into a "string of pearls" by the immense gravity of Jupiter, one by one impacted Jupiter's upper atmosphere leaving scars in the visible image of Jupiter that were larger in size than the Earth.  Had one of these objects hit the Earth it would have been devastating, but thankfully Jupiter had caught them and was absorbing the many blows.  Observatories all over the world had plans to view the impacts if they could be seen from Earth, but no one knew if it would be possible.

At Mt. Locke, I was a staff member at the time and we made sure everything was ready for the chance to see the first impact on a foreign body, Jupiter in this case, ever observed by mankind.  The 0.9-meter observer was set to look for the impact flash reflecting off one of Jupiter's moons since no one on Earth could see them directly.  They would hit just over the horizon of Jupiter and within a few minutes the site would rotate into view.

On the first night, the observer was not able to see the flash as he had hoped, so his plan was abandoned freeing up the 0.9-meter for other use. No backup observations had been planned, so I asked the Superintendent for permission to do visual observations at the 0.9-meter. By the next night we were ready to take a look.

All the opportunities to view Jupiter were in the early evening, as Jupiter set shortly after sunset (and from the 0.9-meter, the mountain blocked our view of it even earlier).

We got word from the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope observer that the first impact of the evening had occured. We were watching the approaching edge of Jupiter anxiously to see the new impact site. When it came into view, it was incredible. As it passed over the face of Jupiter, we called just about everyone on the mountain to come take a look.  Observers on the other telescopes were using guide cameras with their spectrographs which don't really produce quality images so they took turns guiding for their instruments and came to get an eye view.  We viewed every night we could and had visitors from Fort Davis including the Boy Scout troop marveling at the newly formed impact "craters."

That period of viewing is my most memorable experience during my 22+ years working at the Observatory.

The McDonald Observatory was my childhood home. My family moved there from San Antonio in 1968 or so, just after the large telescope was built. My father’s office every day was mostly the 82-inch Telescope. My playground was the mountains ...

There were four of us at the time, myself being the oldest, and three younger brothers. We rode the bus to school in Fort Davis along with all the other children that lived on the mountain. Actually, our homes were at the base of Mt. Locke. They were all single-wide mobile homes. Some, like ours, were installed up the side of the mountain, in the shadow of Mt. Locke. Other mobile homes were located in a large circle in the valley of Mt. Locke.

The land on which the Visitor’s Center is today, was a field. There were usually Brahma bulls in this pasture and we had ‘fun’ taunting them — at a safe distance on the other side of a barbed wire fence!

Our play activities never included any regular television shows. We were too remote to get any stations except on clear nights and some mornings, we could get channel 2 from El Paso!  There was a television antenna that Dad installed in a large pine tree out the back door of the trailer — which, by the way, had no stairs to it. It was a long fall out the back door if one decided to exit that way!  Anyway, the antenna would frequently get blown around and what little reception we got would go away. Dad would climb the tree and twist the antenna around until one of us shouted out from inside “GOOD! STOP THERE!”  However, other than Bugs Bunny at 6 am on Saturdays, we really had no interest in television.

We played cowboys and Indians and made up our own games, usually with nothing other than our own imaginations and stayed outside as much as possible. We learned which wildlife to retreat from – namely skunks and porcupines. Once, we saw a mountain lion. I believe we ran all the way down Mt. Fowlkes without stopping. I’m sure the mountain lion ran down the other side of the mountain just as fast.

We didn’t know the name of that mountain then — we called it ‘flat top’ mountain because, well, it was flat on top. We regularly wandered around up there as well as the woods behind our houses that led up to the top of the mountain to the main telescopes. The Hobby-Eberly Telescope had not yet been built on our ‘flat top’ playground, so we had free reign. There were rocks to collect, trees to climb, forts to built — the possibilities endless.

Most of the residents had horses. There was a stable in the circle of houses below us. We kept an ornery sorrel named Foxy there. Foxy was gentle with us kids, but always tried to bite my dad.  There were several trips to the emergency room in Alpine for broken bones.  One was a broken collar bone that I sustained when riding someone else’s Shetland pony that brushed me off under a tree.

We left before I entered middle school and I cried and cried. I miss that lifestyle to this day. As an adult, I ended up in Houston for a job opportunity and that’s where I must stay. My children and now grandchildren are from here. I return to the McDonald Observatory from time to time and reminisce about how life would be different if my father hadn’t taken another job and taken us away from there.

It’s a wonderful, magical place in my mind. My childhood experiences there shaped who I am today and I’m very grateful for having lived there.

In the '70s, the Department operated a scheduled air charter service between Austin and Marfa. Strictly speaking, the airplane was "leased" and not "chartered." That word is important to the FAA, because leased aircraft (which operate under FAA Part 91) could do things that chartered aircraft (which operate under FAA part 135) could not (at least legally).

We used a Piper Aztec, a twin engine, turbo-charged piston powered airplane that seated 5 passengers plus the pilot. Our pilot was a World War 2 veteran (a P51 pilot during the war) named Jake Jacobsen. His actual first name was Ingvar, but he went by Jake.

The flight left Browning Aviation (a general aviation terminal at the old Robert Mueller airport) promptly at 8:00 a.m. every Monday and Friday. Two hours later we landed at Marfa, where we swapped vehicles with the staff that was departing the mountain back to Austin. The plane was refueled, Jake had his cup of coffee, and the flight left Marfa at 10:30 a.m. for the return to Austin.

Drinking that extra cup of coffee was risky for the passengers because there was no restroom on the airplane, and many of us arrived at our destination in agony, sprinting for the nearest restroom after getting off the airplane. There is a legendary story of one of our astronomers using the PUD (personal urinary device), a milk bottle sized contraption that Jake kept under the seats for extreme emergencies. Of course this device was used in full view of everyone on the airplane.

The vehicle left the TQ [temporary quarters, now called the Astronomers Lodge] for the Marfa airport at 9:30 a.m., and this made the last night of observing difficult, especially during long winter nights when observing could go on till 7:30 a.m. or later. After completing his last night, the observer had to convert his data to punched cards, a slow process, but the only method available to get stored data off the IBM 1800 computer for transport to Austin. Departing observers frequently carried up to 10 boxes of cards, each box containing 1500 punched cards. 

This morning, I had the unique, and wonderful opportunity to host Ms. Betty Evans, and her niece, for a VIP tour here at McDonald.  Ms. Evans is the wife of Dr. David S. Evans, a renowned astronomer from Cambridge, who later worked with McDonald Observatory.

Ms. Evans was delightful to talk with, and has numerous anecdotes and memories of the McDonald institution from the 1968 time-frame forward. 

There are many rare and inspiring people I've met since I've been here at the Observatory, and Ms. Evans is one of the most memorable.  I aspire to be like her, and like my father when I'm in my 90s, spry, with a sharp wit, and a clear memory.

Many of Dr. Evans contributions, and even some of the equipment he worked with continue to be important to this day.  I was able to show Ms. Evans the current incarnation of one of the telescopes her husband made history with, still working today, and contributing toward astronomy and contemporary scientific discovery now, and into the future.

Ms. Evans is a gracious, and fine lady, in the most classical of the sense, and I am honored to have met her.

Working at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) was one of the high points of my career in optics, and a time I will never forget!  I was employed as the On-site Optical Engineer for the HET scope from about August 2001 until March 2003. From the very start, it was an unusual experience.

The person who hired me for this Optical Engineer position resigned and left the site shortly after I began work. That was unfortunate, since I was looking forward to reporting to that individual, as my supervisor. But it worked out that I continued reporting to the on-site Director of McDonald, so it would prove to be a pleasant and satisfactory arrangement.

I had worked at multiple observatories in Hawaii (Island of Maui) and also for the U. of H. Institute for Astronomy (I fA), so working for another university was not an issue. The HET Observatory and its telescope were the largest facility and telescope equipment with which I had ever been associated, (optical scope that is, since I had also worked at the NRAO, which has extremely large radio telescopes!) I knew the HET was going to be an interesting challenge.

During my time there, I had the opportunity to help with the care and feeding of the HET, from tasks as mundane as sweeping dust off the concrete ring wall on which the HET scope rides on air bearings, to cleaning the mirror segments with CO2 snow. Also, these tasks included technical matters such as measuring the reflectivity of the mirror coatings, making adjustments to mechanical equipment, helping work on detectors, and occasionally helping other guys to remove one of the mirror segments from the primary mirror array, when a mirror needed special attention. My least favorite jobs were:  (a.) climbing around on the truss in order to inspect or remove a mirror segment, and  (b.) climbing up and down the CCAS tower outside, which was 90 feet to the top. But these were also parts of the job.

All in all, I liked the work at the HET very much and will never regret having had this opportunity to work with the HET.  The HET is an amazing telescope for astronomical research; it facilitates the pursuit of spectroscopy on a level which is hard to equal. It just does what it was intended to do!  Best of all, the people at the HET and at McDonald in general, were the greatest bunch of folks, and consequently were a joy to work with as associates!  A nicer group of folks you will not find, not easily. My favorite visual observing scope was the 82 inch, which has exquisite optics for imagery. We got to use this scope several times, which was a real treat!

My wife and I lived on-site in one of the University houses which are on the McDonald Observatory property. We both loved that experience. Deer, javalina, foxes, humming birds, etc. would visit our patio and yard all the time, and we never tired of watching and interfacing with the wild life at McDonald. My wife worked at the Visitor's Center, and she enjoyed that as much as I liked working at HET. More nice people were her associates, at the the Center.

McDonald Observatory will always be a place I remember with warm feelings. It was a great learning opportunity, a good part of my optical career, and a wonderful place to live and share our lives with our fellow employees at the site. Thanks for all the good times, and keep up the great work in professional astronomy!

When you stay in the house too much, without any contact with nature, you know how you develop a sort of sickness of the soul? Peak experiences in nature do the opposite; they're soul expanding. McDonald Observatory gives people a special way to connect with nature, whether those people travel to the site, or not. For me, it started each night with seeing a long way in every direction from the top of Mount Locke. You can see lightning storms far off over the plains, rainbows and all the distant sunsets, and stars, and planets popping into view. For a girl in her 20s, there was never so exhilarating a freedom as being able to walk around after dinner, under the darkening sky, just looking up.

  No streetlights came on, but there was no need to worry about being out alone at night, even in the dark of the Moon, as we women sometimes worry in the city. It was always a safe journey into even the darkest of nights, and I came to know my way along the paths between the domes by touch, rather than sight.

There was a magic question that every astronomer always wanted to answer: "What are you working on?" They talked so freely about the space around us, with so many different perspectives on what's out there. Often these conversations went on late at night, in one or another of the domes, as points of fresh data appeared on computer screens in front of us. The tools of astronomy, like those at McDonald Observatory, have let astronomers study starlight — that delicate substance — in order to draw their pictures of the universe.

It was thanks to Harlan Smith that those pictures didn't go into a private room with a sign over the door marked "Astronomers Only." Harlan was a trailblazer and trendsetter who helped open the door to viewing and marveling at astronomers' pictures of what surrounds us in space, for all. I was proud to act as his minion.

I saw too many wonderful sights in the sky over McDonald Observatory to list here. I'll mention one particularly rich Perseid meteor shower, which built over many nights. At the shower's peak, in the hours before dawn, I lay in the back of a flatbed truck parked between the 107-inch and 82-inch domes, as Perseid meteors in all colors literally rained down from the top of the sky. I also especially remember a little crescent Moon, only 18-19 hours from the new phase (I forget the exact number now). It was just a ghost of a Moon really, rising in the east in bright dawn twilight, spotted from the catwalk of the 82-inch telescope dome. The astronomers inside that dome were just finishing their night's work, and they came outside to enjoy the little Moon with me.

I haven't had a night on Mount Locke in a quarter century now. But my soul got so big from being outside on those nights at McDonald Observatory that the memories have carried me through many decades since … and I'm grateful.

State highway 118 from Ft. Davis to the observatory used to be a very different road than it is today. It was a very narrow 2 lane road with no shoulders and no safety “skid out” zones on the steep turns (like Dead Man’s). There were places where the road had a shear wall on one side, and a steep cliff on the other.

Starting in 1975, the state highway department added a number of improvements to the road: they widened it, added scenic overlooks, replaced the low water crossings with bridges so Limpia Creek wouldn’t flow over the road, and they added safety zones around the steep turns.

In January 1976 the highway department informed us there was going to be a big explosion as they blew away part of the mountain to make the road wider and add a shoulder. We all walked down to the old Millimeter Wave Observatory to watch the show. We weren’t disappointed; it was quite an explosion!

The Nova computer was a "16-bit minicomputer" introduced to McDonald Observatory around 1970 by Dr. Ed Nather for instrumentation control. In fact, Ed bought Nova SN 1 with drawings signed by Edson de Castro himself, the founder of the computer manufacturer, Data General Corporation. The machine was small enough to fit on a roll-around cart so that it could be easily used at the 30-inch or 36-inch telescope to control an instrument mounted to the back of the telescope.

Digital memory and micro-computers were not yet available, so the computer used core memory, up to 8 kilobytes per board (about 12" x by 12"), a CPU designed with small scale TTL digital "chips," and user-designed interfaces that all slid handily into the chassis. Software was loaded into the computer from paper tape using an ASR-33 teletype, and data in turn were punched to paper tape.

The light sensor was a photomultiplier tube, a one pixel device that converted photons to electronic pulses which could be counted by the Nova computer interface. In an effort to reduce internal noise, the tubes were kept cold in insulated boxes stuffed with dry ice. Condensation on the boxes during inclement weather would sometimes short out signal cables, so that at one time de-humidifiers were installed at the 30-inch and 36-inch telescopes.

Early on, Nova software was all written in "assembly language." High-level languages and operating systems came later. With an understanding of the Nova assembly language, software could be modified or entered using the computer front panel switches. Lights on the front panel permitted reading the software by stepping through the program one instruction at a time.

At night, the stillness in front of the TQ (Transient Quarters) was broken all night by the rat-a-tat-tat of teletypes punching UBV photometry data on miles of paper tape which was feed into a temporary storage receptacle — a trash can. And in the telescope, each tape punch was preceded by the mechanical sound of the filter wheel advancing about every second to the next color. Up until the Nova computer, the filter had to be turned by hand and the data written in a notebook.

The mini-computer revolutionized the measurement of flare stars, and put McDonald at the forefront of this branch of astronomy. But astronomy keeps moving on, so that now flare star photometry is relegated to amateurs and mini-computers are replaced by microprocessor chips.

The automated photometers freed the astronomer up to guide the telescope; this was before the day of automatic guiding. Astronomers on break would meet at the TQ for coffee with patches over their guiding eyes to maintain light sensitivity.

We had just moved back from Maryland where our daughter Kimberlee was born while Ed was serving in the army from Nov. 1967 until Oct. 1968. We had moved in when his folks into a tiny bedroom not big enough for the three of us. We managed with the hope that would find something soon. He was looking for a job, and as you know, there were just not any jobs available at the time. He had applied at every possible place. Finally, in March of 1969, Ed was hired as a night assistant at the observatory.

In November of that same year, Curt Laughlin (who was the Superintendent) asked Ed if he thought I would be interested in moving into one of the new trailers which had been moved in to provide housing for the new employees. I was thrilled and began moving all the stuff that I could handle by myself because Ed was day sleeping. Eventually, I got us all moved in. Thanksgiving was fast approaching and we made plans to drive down to town to spend it with the in-laws. Surprise – the morning of, we got up to winter wonderland that would have knocked your socks off. It snowed so much our car was completely covered with snow and there was no way out. We were snowed in. However, that did not keep us from having a little fun. We played in the snow until Kim and I were all wet.

I soon learned that if we were going to live up there we would have to properly outfit ourselves with winter clothing that would keep us warm. I even bought a sled for the kids. In 1974 our son Trae was born, and both kids were raised at McDonald. When the snow was so deep that we didn’t have to worry about cars coming along, we would allow the kids to start the sled from House 15 and ride down across the road into our garage (House 10). At the time, there were so many kids, we never had to worry about them out playing at the pond, walking up the hill getting into mischief at the Transient Quarters (TQ) which is now known as the Astronomer’s Lodge, and building forts in the woods. Jerry Wiant had a bell and when he wanted the kids to come home he would ring the bell until they all started coming home. Times were so different then, we did not worry about them at all.

There are too many memories for me to name them all, but our favorite was always the snows we had while living there for 34 years. Our family was one of the original bunch and we have sustained friendships with most of the original crew.

I still visit the observatory with my grandsons Joseph and Braeden. You will find us at the pool on Mondays and Thursday during the summer months. When we are done we always drive by the house where we lived. It will always have a special place in my heart.

Eric and I arrived on the mountain from the east coast in December of 1969 where he would take charge of the laser project, his first job. McDonald was a wonderful place to live! We could see for miles out the living room window of House E where we lived until 1975 when the new houses were finished. It was a great place to raise children, and we made lifelong friends.

One of my favorite memories is from the time when Barbara Laughlin led the observatory children in a performance of "Space Songs." In the picture you can see Gary Gallo (narrator) on the right. In the chorus are Cobb, Barker, Dutchover, Williams, Wiant, and Silverberg children. We still are known to occasionally sing "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" and "Why Do the Stars Twinkle at Night."

Special Viewing Night was offered to the locals of our area in west Texas for no admission. We had never been to the McDonald Observatory and thought this would be an opportune time. We picked the perfect night for our reservation. The skies were clear and the temperature cool. Dan, the moderator, showed us several interesting things in the night sky. Looking through the 36-inch telescope, we were blown away by the awesome wonder of the universe. The McDonald Observatory is truly a treasure in our area, and we will definitely be back again.

In January 2001, I watched the Sun rise from the Harlan J. Smith 107" Telescope building. I saw its dome close when the Sun came up.

At the W.L. Moody, Jr. Visitors Information Center, among other treasures, I purchased earrings that I still wear. The Frank Bash Visitors Center was being built next to it.

The people in Fort Davis proved to be friendly, knowledgable, and shared their knowledge freely. The place seemed magical. It was so green and so many trees dotted the landscape of the Fort Davis mountains.

I really enjoyed Joe's official tour of the Harlan J. Smith Telescope and of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

Here are some photos that I took.

My experience with the McDonald Observatory began at an early age. In fact, when I was just a toddler in the 1950s. I vaguely remember visiting the observatory with family members and being simultaneously awed and terrified by the drive up. The 82" Otto Struve was the only one of the larger telescopes in existence at the time. We would make a day event of it, driving up from Marfa early and spending most of the day in the beautiful setting atop the Davis Mountains. A picnic with barbacoa cooked on a large pit at one of the road side parks leading up to Mt. Locke was always the way we completed our experience. Once at the observatory, the adults would split off from the brood of youngsters, leaving one of the adults to tend to us while they all went up to the 82" for a look see. I don't know what sort of tours they had at the time, if any, but I believe the telescope was accessible to visitors then. We kids were left to our own entertainment, supervised by a parent, and we made the most of it. It must have been like herding cats for whomever was left in charge because I can remember at least half a dozen to a dozen cousins at any one visit.

My most vivid recollection was one that could have had a tragic ending. On one visit after the adults had all gone up to enjoy the sites at the 82", we children and our adult attendant, my father's brother, entertained ourselves with child's play near the car park. At the time, if my recollection is accurate, visitor's cars were parked on the lower loop road where the 30" and 36" telescopes are now located. As we played, some of us noticed a visitor's vehicle slip its brakes and began to move backwards down the slopped parking area toward the drop off on the far side of Mt. Locke. We screamed and caught uncle's attention and he reacted almost instantly. He yelled at us to stay back and raced toward the slowly moving vehicle. He reached it and opened the drivers door, leaped in and applied the foot brake, stopping the car just before it plunged down the mountain. After all was said and done, he was both gratefully thanked by the car's owner who found it sitting not where he parked it, and chastised by our adult group for having taken such a risk to save it from a devastating plunge. I was too small to understand all of it at the time, but in my mind, my uncle was a brave hero for risking his life and doing what he did.

Now, these many years later, I find myself back at McDonald Observatory once again. Only this time, I am part of the staff at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope doing work as a technical staff associate. An electro-mechanical technician to be more precise. I came by this job after having left Texas in my youth to make my own way in the world, meeting and marrying the love of my life, Yolanda. We spent ten years in California, where she is from, raised two beautiful daughters, Ida and Jolene, and struggled as a young couple to make a go of it. Circumstances caused us to move back to Texas where I became employed in the oil and gas business for almost fourteen years. After a downsizing layoff, I decided to go back to school and hone my skills, acquire new ones, and prepare myself for another career. In late 1999, three years after first light for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, I applied for and was hired to my present job. I was ecstatic to be employed and live at such a prestigious world renown observatory and to be back near my hometown of Marfa. I have since had the absolute privilege of working with the most professional colleagues, current and past, both here at the HET and in Austin at the astronomy department. Together we have not only successfully commissioned and operated one of the world's premier spectrographic telescopes, but are currently undertaking the next phase of cutting edge astronomical science with the HETDEX project. Scheduled for completion sometime in 2014, we will be poised to make history by looking for the meaning of Dark Energy.

I have been at the HET for fourteen years now and have enjoyed every single one of them. From doing the everyday grunt work to even being deputy manager of the facility for a short stint, it has been an adventure. I love what I do, where I do it, and working with my colleagues every day. It has been rewarding and gratifying knowing I have been a small part of the science that we produce here in association with astronomers and their departments all over the world. I can truthfully say that I am at peace with the beautiful natural environment of the Davis Mountains, and I am at peace and one with the universe around me. Every night when I gaze up into the dark clear skies of West Texas, I marvel at being a part of the whole. The Milky Way appears to me as a river that can take anyone that wants to go on the journey to the far reaches of the universe and beyond. Who knows, with HETDEX, maybe we will.

I happened to be in the neighborhood of the observatory after presenting a workshop in Alpine and decided to drive up to see what was going on. Alas, the observatory was closed for a private tour of Japanese tourists. I decided to take my chances, started mingling with the group, and told our observatory guide that I was a translator for the group. The truth is I didn't speak a word of Japanese! Sometimes, a little fib and subterfuge is necessary when the stars are calling, and there are no other options available. I made some new friends -- despite the language barrier -- participated in some great observing, and learned astronomy is amazing, whatever language you speak or don't speak.

My father Henry Noah Jones lived in the Ft. Davis , Texas area when my sister Mary Lou Jones was born there, My mom told me dad helped haul a huge lens up the mountain for a new obsevatory being built there at the time.

My Dad, a traveling salesman, and I visited McDonald in the summer of 1950. I was a high school junior from Lamesa, Texas. We met Paul Jose and how I"ll never know, I was invited to spend a week or so at the Observatory. I lived in the dome. I got to observe at the prime focus, develop plates, and do just about everything! Paul and his wife kept me fed and happy. It was a truly wonderful experience. I went to Texas A&M and finished with a degree in Physics. Then I received an MS in Physics fron UCLA and finally a PhD in Astronomy from Wisconsin. I went on to Indiana as a new Assistant Professor. Indiana had observing privileges at McDonald! So I observed at McDonald as a real astronomer from 1965 through the 1970s.

I hope to meet many friends at the celebration on April 26. Please reintroduce yourselves! It has been a long time.

Martin Burkhead

My wife, Barbara, and I are on our way to Capitol Reef National Park to serve as volunteers for May. I will be the visiting Astronomer!

I grew up on a farm near the town of Boonville, IN, and I have been interested in Astronomy since I was five years old. I received a 2.4-inch telescope as Christmas gift when I was ten and I joined the Evansville Astronomical Society when I was twelve. The club's observatory was at a local park where the the skies were pretty dark. The original telescope was a 12.5 inch F/10 Reflector that was made by the astronomer Edgar Everhart. It was replaced a long time ago with a Celestron C-14.

When I was a teenager I built a six-inch Newtonian Reflector on a Dobsonian mounting. I was very active in the club and served as the clubs Secretary/Historian and Program Chairman for several years. I received a degree in Electronics and worked in that profession for several years but my real passion has always been Astronomy.

In 1995 I began employment at the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science in their planetarium. One day while looking through the International Planetarium Society bulletin I happened upon a listing for a job opening conducting public programs at the McDonald Observatory Visitors Center. I had always dreamed of working at an observatory and this sounded just perfect for me! I applied for the job but unfortunately it had already been filled.

In 1996 I took a trip to the southwest to visit sights that have always intrigued me. I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time and visiting observatories was the top item on my list. I went to Kitt Peak, Lowell, and Sunspot just to name few. On the way back I stopped by McDonald and went to star party and did a self-guided tour the next day. After this trip I decided that someday I would live in the southwest.

In Oct. of 1999 I found out that the job at the Visitors Center was available again and I re-applied. I contacted the Visitors Center and spoke with Marc Wetzel and informed him that I was interested in the job and a few days later I hopped on a plane(s) and flew here for an interview. I was offered the job a few days later.

The journey here for the interview is a story in itself. On Nov. 1, 1999, I left Indiana for the three-day journey to my new job and home. My parents and brother traveled with me for the move and I have been here ever since. Living in West Texas is a lot different than Indiana, but it did not take me long to adapt. In closing I would like to say, follow your dreams because someday they may become true.

I was selected to participate in a week long Space Science Workshop at the observatory. I was excited to attend because it was my first time to travel to the area. I learned many fascinating things about space and activities to share with my K-4th graders in the science lab at Samuel W. Houston Elementary School in Huntsville, TX. My favorite experiment was when we proved that the Earth is moving not the Sun by the use of sidewalk chalk shadow people. I still use this experiment today with my students. Thank you so much for inviting me to participate in a world of space science in the great outdoors.

I was allowed to offer Astronomy for the first time it was taught for the 2006-2007 school year at Lehman High School in Kyle, TX. My Department Chair recommended the Professional Development at McDonald Observatory, so I applied to attend two seminars. I loved the summer experience at McDonald Observatory! McDonald Observatory was the first working professional observatory I had ever visited. May of 2006 I brought my first group of students to McDonald Obs and it really changed their lives in the most positive ways. I am still attending trainings and bringing students to one of my favorite places on Earth, McDonald Observatory!

This was my very first trip to the observatory! Having no idea where the observatory was at, but knowing it was going to take me eight hours to drive, I packed my belongings late the night before, after being at school all day teaching my junior high kiddos, and got minimal sleep. I left my home a little earlier than normal and drove non stop, except for fuel and food of course, by myself. Then taking that winding road (118) off the Interstate up to the mountain top, was a bit more than I was ready for, but because I procrastinated felt it would be just fine. I knew I would check in, get my lodging, at the time it was at the Indian Lodge and then get me some rest for the next day's activities! Little did I know it would resemble boot camp I had attended some 30 years earlier in San Antonio!

Upon arriving and checking in, I was extremely tired and was informed where the classroom was and would be starting the training THEN! Although the staff was no where close to the drill instructors I had at boot camp, it was that I was expecting some rest prior to training beginning and did not get any. 18 plus hours was a bit of a long day, especially driving almost half of it. I did pick up quite a bit of information those first hours and was glad we attended. The next morning, although somewhat early and late to bed that night made for another long day, but one filled with exciting learning and things I was able to use in my classes.

I also had another exciting story the second night at the Indian Lodge. It had begun raining and my roommate and I had a great room. After we had returned from the observatory for the night, we entered our room to find we had a leak. My roommate was not so put out as I was, since the leak was over MY bed! Fortunately, they had another room and we moved that night, but in the rain!

Needless to say, the rest I did not get while at the observatory was not really needed as the staff had so much for us to do and accomplish, I completely forgot all about the rest and was able to concentrate on learning so I could be a better facilitator at my school.

Thank you to each and every one of those fantastic observatory staff members!

I had forgotten what a truly dark sky could produce ... the magic, the infinity, the glorious majesty, and the over whelming feeling of being a part of something far greater than everyday life. The abundance of stars crashed over me like a giant wave the instant I walked out of the transient quarters at the McDonald Observatory in west Texas late one July night. I was one of 16 teachers chosen to broaden their astronomical horizons through the American Astronomical Society Teacher Resource Agent program (AASTRA). Dr. Mary Kay Hemenway and her graduate assistant, Pamela Gay, were our guides, instructors and mentors through five nights of observation and work on the 76 centimeter telescope. But all I could think of that first night as I walked with my head held back at a 90 degree angle to my body was, “I forgot.”

I remember the first time I saw a night sky with the dominant summer Milky Way. It was almost a religious experience. I was no longer attached to my grounded hunk of tissues and bone. I became part of the darkness of space. My thoughts blended with the stars and I felt the importance of my planet’s place in our galaxy.

All of my memories of childhood wonderment came rushing back on that warm summer night. With each meteorite that fell, I felt elation and sheer joy. I don’t think I stopped smiling that entire night, even when I had to report back to the telescope for my second run at
3:00 a.m.

For those of us who teach astronomy but do not usually participate in actual astronomical research, the technology that has developed around this science is absolutely fascinating. There was no keyboard button to push, no screen to look at, and no star to locate that we did not find interesting.

On the first night though, we had problems. A summer thunderstorm struck before we arrived and the electrical power running the computers had been zapped with one bolt of lightning. We lost the ability to align the telescope with our guide star, Cygnus B and the telescope needed to be recalibrated. Everyone on all of the shifts that first night worked to accomplish this feat. We centered the telescope on several stars but it wasn’t until about 5:00 a.m. that all of the instruments checked out — just in time to shut down for sunrise.

I am not a night person but I couldn’t wait for my second night of observation. By the third morning, with two runs under our belts, we were feeling confident and started comparing notes, Making astronomical observations reminded me of rock hunting; the more specimens you find, the pickier you get.

A variety of star clusters within the Milky Way were located and imaged using our charged coupling device (CCD) capabilities. We also looked at nebulae, which supply the galaxy with pigmentation. Against the black curtain of space, nebulae colored the imaginations of all who viewed them. The Omega Nebula (M17) was the most spectacular. Looking at the monitor, we all felt the presence of beginnings; all that could be created was in that misty shroud. Fantastic!

One night we found an irregular galaxy (NGC 6027, part of the Seyfert Sextet) that was vaguely shaped like one of the worms in the science fiction novel Dune so we laughingly started referring to it as “Aracus.”

When we completed our stay at the McDonald Observatory, the goals of the AASTRA program had been accomplished. Our science was more firmly grounded. Our abilities to translate that science for students would be formed by personal experience. We had new resources and new networks. As we sat together on that last night, the talk centered not on technology but on the dark sky. We laughed that Jupiter was so bright that it looked like an airplane making an approach to an airport.

One teacher reiterated the story of how the different colored meteors had fallen one after another as if on cue. Another spoke of how brilliant the different constellations were and how extremely bright Cassiopeia was in July. I added my tale about the hypnotic effect the brightly banded Milky Way had on me as a child. We finished our stories, sang some songs, and made a final pledge. We vowed in unison to do one thing first when we returned home. We would take our loved ones and anyone else we could persuade to see a piece of magic that most city dwellers miss - the dark sky.

Thank you McDonald Observatory.

Originally published in The Science Teacher Magazine, April 2000

Last week, the more than 75-year-old model of the 82-inch telescope arrived at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas. This morning I got to be there when they opened the crate containing it. I felt a little like Indiana Jones in the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" movie to get to be a part of this ceremony. The model is on loan from the Western Reserve Historical Society and it came all the way from Cleveland, Ohio. Twenty-five years ago, the model was exhibited at the Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University in Alpine in association with McDonald Observatory’s 50th anniversary.

Some people really wanted to see this model again and others have never seen it. This caused our staff member Bill Wren to track it down. It had moved from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History over to the Western Reserve Historical Society, and it took him a while to find it. Then, over 50 people donated to our campaign to bring the model back to Texas and we are grateful to all of them. We expected it to be here sooner but the record-setting ice and snow in the Midwest delayed its departure from Cleveland.

The model will be part of the Texas State History Museum’s exhibit entitled McDonald Observatory: 75 Years of Stargazing, which opens on May 1 and runs through June 30, 2014. Then it will take the 450-mile trek to the Observatory’s visitors center near Fort Davis, Texas and be on display indefinitely.

If you open the little little trap doors on the side of the model, you can see into an area that was once the astronomer’s quarters. Astronomers no longer sleep in the 82-inch dome. That was something they did before they build the Astronomer’s Lodge (Long House or TQ for those in the know) and other housing. Still, the musty smell inside the crate tells me that the spirits of the model builders and the Warner & Swasey Company, that built the telescope, live on.

I was awakened from this nostalgic experience this morning with a fire drill at the Museum — not nearly as exciting as the scene in the movie when the spirits of the Ark kill everyone who is watching it being opened. Nonetheless, it was fun to time travel back to the 1930s and what it must have been like to be involved in the creation of the great 82-inch Telescope and its model.

My first visits to McDonald Observatory occurred in the seventies as a camper at Prude Ranch. One of our field trips was to the Observatory and what struck me the most wasn't the telescopes or skies, but the migration of thousands of ladybugs on every surface. It was a Milky Way of orange and black.

Shortly after my 10th birthday, our family left Dallas in our 1935 Plymouth for a trip to West Texas. Memorable stops along the way were eating breakfast in the Nimitz Hotel in Fredericksburg, and spending the night in the new Lone Starr Lodges in Kerrville. We headed for Fort Davis, where we spent the night at the Prude Ranch and then drove up Mt. Locke to see the new McDonald Observatory on September 7th.

 Somehow, I realized that this was a very important place. We took pictures there, and at the ruins of old Ft Davis. On the way to El Paso and the Carlsbad Caverns, we drove to Marfa during an awesome rain storm. My dad had to shed his britches and shoes and get out of the car to lead us through the deep water. Eventually, we reached New Mexico and the Caverns. My Mother's note in the photo album said there were 300 in our party to watch the bats fly out before group toured the caverns.

In order for the observatory to be built a road had to be constructed up the mountain, which was a distance of 17 miles from Ft. Davis., C.E. Armstrong and Sons (my Great Grandfather and his company) were part of the building of the road.

When it was completed and the building was ready for the installation of the equipment, Charles Armstrong and Sons hauled the 82-inch Telescope tube and later the first mirror up the mountain to the observatory. The original dedication took place on May 5, 1939.

It was probably very early in the public history of McDonald Observatory when the Jim Baker family made their first visit. With 3 preschoolers (Warren, Mildred, and Roger), it must have been a Sunday near 75 years ago, probably when Jim was operating a Burro half-circle crane for the redecking of Southern Pacific Railroad's Pecos High Bridge.

 A white placcard on the door, and the man peering through the glass would indicate the observatory was not open to visitors. We did pet whitetail deer in the yard.

I was lucky enough to get to the observatory two summers in a row for teacher workshops. On the second of these, I got my hands on a "real" telescope. No, not a research instrument. I was honored to collect photons with my own eyes through the 36-inch, by far the largest telescope I've ever used. Starting at age 12 with a 4.25-inch reflector, over the years, I worked up to a 10-inch. And I have observed objects with telescopes as large as 20 inches.

But this was a real treat!

Objects that would be faint or impossible with those smaller telescopes simply jumped out of the eyepiece! It was such a pleasure to use this telescope to see familiar objects as if for the first time. While I prefer to find objects manually, it was just plain fun to tell it what to find and watch it home in on the target -- and to see that it is smart enough to know it can't look through the mountain behind it. The fun continued well past 1 a.m., as another teacher and I kept picking off targets. Fatigue isn't a problem when you have the rare opportunity to use such a fine instrument under such perfect conditions.

I spent a fair amount of time just staring at that sky. There have been few times indeed when I have been privileged to raise my eyes to such a clear and dark sky. And despite my long experience, there were moments when the huge number of faint stars made it a little difficult to find familiar patterns.

It was hard to put the telescope to sleep and quit for the night. I almost felt sorry for astronomers working inside at a computer console who would not get the total experience of that night.

In 1955 my mother inherited her father's car and she brought me and her mother to McDonald Observatory from Lamesa, a long trip at the time.

We were in a '49 or so Dodge, and it vapor locked on the way to observatory. My mother made me and my grandmother get out while she backed the non-running car back down the hill.

My grandmother just stood on the side of the road with her hands over her eyes screaming the whole time, knowing my mother was about to die, but she managed to back down the very narrow road and got the car restarted at the bottom.

I didn't make it to the observatory that time and probably didn't come back until the late 60s to visit, but I'll never forget the first attempt.

A highlight of our epic three week vacation, with 5 kids in a "Pop-Top VW" was the McDonald Observatory. Friends at the Moody Foundation, my customer, had urged be to go to the Observatory. Evidently the Moodys were big contributors, and I had done considerable work in their new building, American National Insurance Co., Galveston. I had seen photos in the Moody offices. Anyway the experience was "other worldly," to use a cliche'. I loved it and have returned many times. The kids now have kids and will be taking them soon.

On May 2, 2014, McDonald Observatory Director David L. Lambert gave a talk on the history and future of McDonald Observatory in Paris, Texas — the home of William Johnson McDonald (1844-1926), whose bequest to the University of Texas created McDonald Observatory.

The event, on the campus of Paris Junior College, was hosted by the Rotary Club of Paris and the Texas Exes Paris Chapter. In his closing, Lambert said that his own life had been greatly affected by the events that Mr. McDonald set in motion through his will, and that he liked to think that Mr. McDonald would be happy to see what his estate had created and how it had grown and developed over time. Later, Lambert was joined by Texas Exes Paris Chapter officers Brandon Hoog and Rhonda Rogers for a photo (shown) in front of the historic marker that honors Mr. McDonald at the site of the First National Bank of Paris, downtown.

During April of 1982, I attended a Planetarium Conference with a very good friend of mine, Bryan Snow. Bryan was then Director of the Scobee Planetarium at San Antonio College. Just before we left on our journey we contacted a local meteorologist about the weather conditions in Fort Davis. His comment was, "You poor boys." The forecast was a snow storm for the Davis Mountains. Mind you, this was late for this time of year. While traveling out interstate 10 West the weather was very nice. When we arrived in Fort Stockton, Texas we noticed the outside temperature dramatically dropped. We stopped for lunch in Fort Stockton and noticed the buses traveling from the West had sheets of ice on the front grills. We did not think much of it and proceeded with our trip to the Davis Mountains.

When we approached the mountainous area, we encountered one of the most beautiful snow storms I have ever seen. Living in San Antonio, Texas, for so many years one rarely sees snowfall. So this was a real treat. Arriving at the Indian Lodge located at the Davis Mountain State Park, snow had blanketed much of the area.

The Indian Lodge was not only our hotel accommodations but also the site of the Planetarium Conference. One of the speakers at the conference was then McDonald Observatory Director Dr. Harlan Smith. The conference went well and later we all wondered if the skies would clear. Harlan Smith said it will be clear tonight. I then asked Dr. Smith if it would be alright to set up my vintage orange Celestron C8 telescope on Mt. Locke near the 107" telescope dome. Harlan said it was okay.

Indeed the skies did clear. I was using my 1950 Epoch Skelnate Pleso star charts to star hop and locate faint planetary nebulae that would push the limits of my C8 telescope. While observing these faint fuzzy objects, a gentleman in a wool ski cap came behind me, and requested to look through my telescope. We then proceeded to observe many faint planetary nebulae, which some appeared nearly stellar in the Celestron C8 telescope. He told me that was the most planetary nebulae he had seen in a single evening.

At that point he explained he had recently returned from an Astronomical Conference in Greece. He said he was there with some of the most notable astronomers in the world. While at the conference they stepped outside to look at the night sky. The gentleman informed me many of these astronomers could not identify the bright object in the western sky as the planet Venus. He then proceeded to have a class on whats up in tonight's sky which he instructed. The gentleman Bryan and I were observing with was Dr. Harlan Smith. Dr. Smith was not only a professional astronomer but also an observer.

That evening was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, that I will always cherish. The 107" Telescope on top of Mount Locke now bears his name.

I love to learn and consider myself a lifelong learner. My original degrees are in Biology and Botany, but my first love of Astronomy began at the age of 5 when I first saw the Milky Way from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Growing up in the wilds of New York City brought me to learn at the Hayden Planetarium in as many "Astronomy for Young People" courses as my parents would allow.

I have been teaching a one semester Astronomy course for high school students since the Fall of 2004. From the beginning, I have sought professional development opportunities to extend and update my knowledge and authentic research experiences that I could turn into investigations for my students.

 I was fortunate to be selected for The Age of the Milky Way workshop the summer after I had worked on the ARBSE program through Kitt Peak National Observatory. The summer of 2008 had brought me to Kitt Peak. The night I was supposed to be rotating through and collecting our data for the Open Cluster project found us immersed in a major electrical storm that closed down the 0.9-meter telescope.

Undeterred, I saw a similar, shorter program at McDonald Observatory posted for the Summer of 2009. Since West Texas is closer to Oklahoma than Arizona, I decided that this was the place to be. The drive takes me 10 hours from Norman, but I have learned to love each part of the way, know where to stop and stretch and when I see the Davis Mountains rise up, I really get excited. I enjoyed the drive through the Davis Mountains as much to see the biology of the area. It is lovely.

We had perfect skies during the three nights and four days of that workshop, and I think the group of us closed down the telescopes each night of our stay there. The message of starlight and dark skies is magical, and once you have experienced it you are rarely satisfied with any less.

The other wonderful part is that I was able to connect with a group of teachers and UT Astronomers with similar interests and hopes for their students. We continue our conversations and sharing via e-mails and Facebook. We also became friends. I am always humbled when the Longhorns are willing to share their skies with this Sooner.

Other workshops (MONET in 2010; The Hubble Universe in 2012; and Texas EXES with Dr. Chris Sneeden and sharing his quest to study halo stars in 2013) have been outstanding (even thought it rained for the entire MONET workshop). Getting to have eyeball-to-eyepiece views on all of the scopes has been impressive. M 13 on the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope was just amazing, but my favorite scope is the 0.9-meter because it is the most hands-on for the teachers.

Getting to meet and learn from folks such as Drs. Mary Kay Hemenway, Kurtis Williams, Rick Hesseman, Keely & Steve Finklestein, Kyle Fricke, Jody Harkrider, Judy Stanton Meyer, Marc Wetzel, and all the research astronomers who have shared their experiences and what they were learning has been exciting and stimulating. They practice what they preach!

I look forward to more experiences in the dark skies of West Texas whenever I can come down. The true beneficiaries are my own students and my three sons who are amazed that I have so much enthusiasm for what I teach. While I haven't been able to field trip my students down to West Texas, I can take them to the dark skies of the Oklahoma Panhandle during the Okie-Tex Star Party each Fall.

Learning more about Astronomy and our Universe is very special when it is hands-on, but nothing prepares you for the aesthetics and emotional side of the magic of starlight! Thanks for the memories and learning to share with others! Here's to the future! Happy 75th Anniversary!

My wife, Linda, and I were guests at McDonald Observatory in the 1980s. It was an exceptional experience. The people there, the student instructors, the cordial reception, and program were all very impressive. Multiple telescopes were available, for viewing nebulae, twin stars, the moon, Saturn’s rings, and various other objects. The quality of the presentations could not have been better, but we noticed that the quality of the existing visitors’ center was something else.

I called Frank Bash, who, I believe, was at the time the chair of the astronomy department at UT Austin, and mentioned this to him. I suggested that some consideration be given to improving the visitors center. As I recall, he said that, by coincidence, they were looking into that matter at that time and were looking to raise some seed money to provide architectural plans for the project. I believe that around an additional $70,000 was needed. I indicated that I would see if I could get a friend of mine, Neil Griffin of Kerrville, to join me in making a contribution around that level. Whether Neil had had any prior connection with McDonald Observatory or the astronomy department at UT, I do not know, but he indicated immediately that he liked the idea and would like to participate. The seed money was provided, as I am sure along with other funds, and work on the new upgraded visitors center was begun.

The Visitors Center, which opened in 2002 and was later named in honor of Dr. Frank Bash, is, of course, an important part of the McDonald Observatory complex and provides a statement of the quality of the overall operation.

I just wanted to throw this story out there and it is not some spectacular tale of stars and galaxies far, far away. it is about a group of guys that makes a short little motorcycle run from the Waco and Temple areas of Texas to the observatory each year.

T-Bone, Mace, Quagmire, and Johnnykat ride out to West Texas each year to sleep in tents, see the sights and enjoy what mother nature has to offer. Along with our ride comes a visit to McDonald Observatory each year. It is a great ride to the top and pictures are taken of the same things each year and it always seems new. We were lucky enough to meet a great guy one year that allowed us to actually see the inside. AMAZING! We may not be astronomers, but we are still amazed by the size and capability of each of these 'scopes. This stop is on our list again this year. Terlingua4 ...

In January 2014 light from a supernova in M82, the Cigar Galaxy, reached us here on Earth. I was able to view it with my small Dobsonian, but I wanted more so I signed up for one of the special viewing sessions on the 36" Telescope at McDonald Observatory.

When time came for the viewing session, skies were heavily overcast. Only I and two others stuck it out with staff member Dan Gordon. Dan was convinced the clouds would part if we were willing to wait it out. Finally it did clear, and the three of us were rewarded with a fantastic evening on the telescope.

I had asked Dan if we might view the supernova in M82, but he was doubtful because he felt it would be behind the dome of the 107" Telescope. As the session came to an end, Dan was kind enough to give it a try. M82 had just barely peeked out from behind the 107" dome, and we were treated to a sight few ever get a chance to see ... a supernova in a neighboring galaxy just 12 million light years distant. Viewed through the 36" scope it was fantastic, and an experience I will always treasure. I'd like to give a huge thank you to Dan Gordon for being willing to have a go at finding M82 in the waning evening hours. Thank you, Dan!

My family lived in Odessa, TX at the time of my first visit. All I wanted to do was see the stars. As a child it was amazing to see this telescope that could go to the stars. I have a picture of myself in front of the observatory in 1956, and Christmas of 2009 I took a picture of my grandson standing in the area that I stood. My grandson loved the visit and wishes to go back and hope to do so next summer, 2015.

After years of hearing StarDate on NPR, I knew that the McDonald Observatory was a worthy destination on my Hemicentennial (50th Birthday) Celebration roadtrip. I decided to leave Seattle and drive to various astronomy-related sites ending with a visit to the McDonald Observatory (and my son who was living in Marfa). I started in Seattle and drove to The Griffith observatory in L.A., Kitt Peak Observatory in Tucson, the VLA in Soccoro, NM, and finally to the McDonald in Ft. Davis.

Loving astronomy as a Seattleite (avg 226 cloudy days per year) is perhaps the most frustrating hobby in the universe, so my time looking at the dark skies of West Texas was a quasi- religious experience for me. My son from Marfa and I came to a star party and got to see the Jovian moons and other deep-sky objects we couldn't see with our binoculars. I think that day was one of my "perfect days," starting with a horse ride at the Prude Ranch. Then a lunch at the StarDate Cafe watching the hummingbirds, then a thorough visit at the visitor's center, dinner in Ft. Davis, then back to the observatory for the Star Party.

The next night we put our star smarts to use at the end of a road (field) in Marfa complete with fireflies, crickets, the train, and the Summer Triangle right overhead.

Now my son can point out the stars to his boys and think about the moons of Jupiter. Life just gets better, doesn't it?

My father, R. Edward Nather, passed away on August 13, 2014. He was one of McDonald Observatory's most illustrious astronomers. Would you believe that when he passed at age 87, he still kept his observing suit?

All of you have "Ed Stories," so here is one of mine. In 1976, I was 6 years old and the youngest of Dad's children. That Christmas, Dad told my siblings and me that we had to spend the holiday at "the observatory," which to my child's ears simply meant "someplace foreign and unfamiliar."

One afternoon, I recall being kept away from my parents for what seemed like a nefarious reason, and this only lit my natural inclination toward investigation. So I snuck out of wherever I was banished and found my parents sitting in a living room, on the floor, buried under mounds of wrapping paper. Dad handed me a hollow plastic candy cane filled with M&Ms and said very matter-of-factly — as you do — "Santa Claus does not exist. We've been giving you presents every Christmas."

I took it in stride - being handed chocolate always helps bad news go down easier — and within minutes, I had wandered off to go look at the deer through the window. And that is how I learned the truth about Santa Claus.

This was not the last hard truth that Dad would bestow upon me, but it is by far the most memorable in its insouciance and scientific delivery. If you knew Ed Nather, you are nodding right about now.

This is being written by Bruce Babcock, son of Horace W. Babcock (1912-2003). Horace was at McDonald during parts of the year 1940. I'm not sure if he would be considered a staff or a visiting astronomer. I know he was brought in by Otto Struve after a stint at Yerkes in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. It was there he met my mother and they were married on July 1, 1940.

He later worked on radar and rocket projects during the war (at MIT and Caltech) and then joined the Mount Wilson staff in 1946. He retired as Director of the Carnegie Observatories after taking a leading role in the creation of Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. His father, Harold Delos Babcock, was on the Mount Wilson staff from 1909-1949. Both won the Bruce Medal, among many other honors. This photo was among many family 35 MM slides taken during the 1940s and 1950s. I imagine that he took this photo.

I was hoping to identify the people in the photo. The woman in white is my mother, Margaret Anderson Babcock. Otto Struve is, I believe, second from the left. I'm not sure if the others are staffers and their wives, or were visitors attending some kind of event. I've had no luck so far. Any help would be appreciated. Many thanks,

Bruce Babcock

Leading astronomers from around the world gathered for the dedication of McDonald Observatory and its 82-inch telescope.

Paris, Texas banker William Johnson McDonald left the bulk of his fortune to The University of Texas at Austin “for the purpose of aiding in erecting and equipping an Astronomical Observatory to be kept and used in connection with and as part of the University for the study and promotion of the study of Astronomical Science.”

Gerard Kuiper discovered the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, the first detection of an atmosphere for any moon in the solar system.

Harold Johnson and W.W. Morgan devised a system for measuring the colors of stars. The system, which is still in use today, allows astronomers to remove the effect of interstellar dust, which makes stars look redder.

Gerard De Vaucouleurs proposed that the Milky Way galaxy is a barred spiral, with spiral arms extending from a long “bar” of stars in its center.

Dedication of the 107-inch (2.7-meter) Telescope. It was later renamed the Harlan J. Smith Telescope in honor of the observtory director responsible for its construction.

Robert Tull completed the Coude spectrograph for the 107-inch Telescope. It is the largest and most sensitive spectrograph of its type in the world. It has been renamed the Tull Spectrograph, and is still in use today.

One month after Neil Armstrong took the first “small step” on the Moon, McDonald Observatory bounced a laser beam off a reflector left on the Moon by Apollo 11. The experiment measured the Earth-Moon distance with an accuracy of a few inches.

An instrument developed by R. Edward Nather opened a new field of astronomy, high-speed photometry. It allows astronomers to measure changes in an object’s brightness on timescales of a thousandth of a second or less. Among other things, it has been used used to discover rapid pulsations in white dwarfs, the “corpses” of once-normal stars like the Sun.

Tom Barnes and David Evans published a method for determining a star’s size by measuring its brightness and temperature. Known as the “surface brightness relation,” it is still a commonly used technique today.

NASA launches Hubble Space Telescope, which was developed and planned with the input of several University of Texas astronomers and engineers. In particular, Fritz Benedict and Bill Jeffreys led a team developing the telescope's Fine Guidance Sensors, which allow it to point precisely at cosmic targets. Today, McDonald astronomers routinely use Hubble and other space-based telescopes in their research.

The innovative Hobby-Eberly Telescope was dedicated. It uses a mosaic of 91 individual mirror segments to create a primary mirror with an effective light-gathering power of a single 9.2-meter mirror.

An automated search using a McDonald telescope discovered the most powerful supernova to date, Supernove 2005ap.The exploding star briefly shone 100 billion times brighter than the Sun. The Texas Supernova Search project was run by University of Texas graduate student Robert Quimby using the ROTSE IIIb telescope at McDonald.

McDonald astronomers Gary Hill and Karl Gebhardt began developing the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). It will examine more than one million galaxies to probe the nature of dark energy, which is causing the universe to expand faster as it ages.

Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, McDonald astronomers including Bill Cochran discovered the first planet orbiting a close-together binary star system. It is one of many exoplanet discoveries made at McDonald.

When The University of Texas at Austin received W.J. McDonald's bequest for building an observatory, it had no astronomy department. The University of Texas entered into an a agreement with the University of Chicago, which had many fine astronomers and its own Yerkes Observatory. The deal allowed for the University of Chicago to operate McDonald Observatory for 30 years.