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Today was fairly restful. We took a drive around the Scenic Loop which started in Fort Davis. There were a number of smaller mountains, some nice pull-offs and picnic areas, and a few small villages. Some of the villages were essentially deserted, and all of them were quite small. We did a bit of window shopping in the village of Alpine, then headed back to the trailer for dinner.
After dinner, we went to the McDonald Observatory. This was a very impressive location, set atop one of the taller mountains in the region. There were about five extremely large telescopes that were quite far away from the visitors centre, and these were not open to the public. The Star Party was very neat. There was a presentation at the outdoor amphitheatre where the scientist pointed out many constellations with his very impressive laser pointer, and walked us through the signs of the zodiac and the path that the sun traveled through them over the course of each year. After the presentation, we were able to look through 8-10 telescopes focused on different highlights in the night sky. One telescope was focused on Saturn, and although it was quite small in the telescope, it was very cool to see the rings so clearly defined. This was also a great spot to view the dark sky and see the Milky Way and thousands of stars.
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