This is a picture of me in front of my new dome. O.K., actually it's not mine.today we took the tour of McDonald Observatory and this dome houses the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. The scope is a few inches larger than mine - in fact it's a few feet larger - like about 29 feet larger! The "mirror" consists of a mosaic of smaller mirrors and they claim the total aperture to be 362 inches total. It's the biggest primary in existence and is used exclusively for spectroscopy. The mount is fixed in altitude at about 55 degrees, but the whole setup rotates 360 degrees in azimuth. We actually got to go inside and see it up close and personal.
We also got an insider's tour of the 107 inch telescope, and the 82 inch Otto Struve Telescope.
I'm pretty much exhausted from lack of sleep but the astronomy excitement is keeping me going. It's looking like tonight may be rather cloudy but I'll hold out hope for now. Time for some dinner.
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