June 19, 2021
Chris and Heather welcome Bill Wren of McDonald Observatory for a discussion of the incredible night skies in the Big Bend region, stargazing activities, and ongoing programs to preserve the precious resource of our dark night skies.
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Transcript for “Night Skies in Alpine and the Big Bend”:
Intro
Welcome to the heart of the Big Bend. It’s time to kick back, put your feet up, grab your favorite beverage or snack as we discussed, declare, proclaim, publicize and articulate about the wonders, magic, beauty, music and happenings here in the area known as the Big Bend of Texas.
Chris Ruggia
Hello welcome and thank you for joining us again for heart of the Big Bend. This is a podcast and radio show coming to you every other week about visiting the beautiful Big Bend of Texas. Specifically, we will cover what’s happening in Alpine, an incredibly friendly, small town nestled in a desert mountain valley at the heart of the Big Bend region. With easy day trips from Alpine, you can take in everything this amazing region has to offer.
I’m Chris Ruggia, Director of Tourism for the City of Alpine, and I’m joined, as usual, by our visitor center, Coordinator, Heather Yadon.
Heather Yadon
Hello.
Chris R
And we have a really distinguished guest this time around, Bill Wren of the McDonald Observatory. Welcome, Bill.
Bill Wren
Good morning.
Chris R
Thanks so much for joining us. What we’re here to talk about today is the night skies in the Big Bend region and the incredible asset they are to the folks who live here, everyone who visits, and of course, then what we need to do on an ongoing basis to keep them that way.
So, Bill, how would you describe the night skies in our area as opposed to other places?
Bill W
Becoming increasingly unique. And that the places you can go to see a naturally dark nighttime sky are shrinking and becoming fewer and farther between as urban sprawl just continues. So this is one of the last places in the country where you can visit and see what the sky looks like.
Chris R
Yeah. So what feels normal to us on a day to day living in Alpine or Fort Davis is not the same thing that somebody in anywhere else is going to see.
Bill W
That’s right. The International Dark Sky Association estimates that over 80 % of the population of the United States in Europe are not able to see the Milky Way out their back doors.
Chris R
Wow. Well, folks, let me tell you, when you come out here for a visit, you’re going to look up and you’ll see it.
Heather Y
I sometimes forget because I’ve gotten used to it since living here. And then whenever family or friends come in to visit, they’re wowed by it. And they’re like, oh, my gosh, all the stars. And I was like, oh, yeah. And the moon is so bright and you can see so much that I think we get used to it. And it takes somebody from the outside coming in to make you appreciate it again. I’m sure you appreciate it every day.
Bill W
Yeah, I can relate to that. I grew up in the country, up in Missouri, and the night sky, the starry sky was like wallpaper. It was just I took it for granted. And then in my teens, I moved to Houston. And it was a few years before I figured out that something was missing until I took a trip out of town and was able to see the sky again. It’s like, oh, my goodness, what are we missing?
Heather Y
Yeah, I had the same experience. I grew up in downstate Illinois, and then went to college in Chicago. It was like, go to the Planetarium if you want to see that in Chicago. So it’s very different. And the people get to experience it naturally here. And it’s amazing. And I think that the parks are where it all starts, right?
Chris R
Well, one thing that similar… It’s not quite the same difference as coming from Houston to the middle of Alpine, but there is a difference, even between our small communities in the Big Bend area, and you go out into the wilderness, set aside areas like Big Bend National Park and Big Ben Ranch State Park, both of which have been named International Dark Sky Parks. And what does that mean, Bill?
Bill W
Well, there’s an organization called the International Dark Sky Association that was formed in 1988. And one of the things that they’re trying to do is work with the lighting industry to keep skies dark, and they’re also heavily involved in education and awareness to keep the skies dark. Part of that is a Dark Sky Places program. There are international Dark Sky Parks, Dark Sky communities, Dark Sky Sanctuaries, and Dark Sky their reserves among some of the other designations that they offer.
Chris R
I see. Well, and speaking from experience, when you go down to a place like the middle of Big Ben National Park, and there’s not a artificial light within sight. It’s a stunning experience once the sun goes down. Agreed.
Bill W
Yeah, spectacular.
Chris R
Yeah, and of course, once the sun goes down, the place that you work gets just busier at night time, right? Sure. Bill’s coming to us from McDonald Observatory, which is one of the top attractions, certainly up there with the national and State Parks in our region in terms of what they offer to visitors coming out. But that’s not all that they do, of course. Tell us a little bit about the Observatory.
Bill W
Sure. Mcdonald Observatory is a satellite campus of the University of Texas at Austin. About 500 acres that sits on top of Mount Lock, the heart of the Davis Mountains outside Fort Davis. And well, we have some of the largest telescopes in the world. The 10-metre Hobby-Eberle telescope is in constant use. In fact, it’s the one large telescope in the world that didn’t shut down during the pandemic. It was designed to be operated remotely, or it was able to be operated remotely. And so we have kept observing throughout. The big project there right now is to study dark energy, which is this mysterious force that is causing the universe to expand in an accelerated rate. They call it dark energy. Energy because it’s accelerating and dark because we don’t have a clue as to why. But that’s just half of our mission. Actually, our benefactor, William Johnson McDonald, who passed away in 1926, left his entire estate to the University of Texas to erect a large astronomical telescope. Well, big enough, as he put it, to peer the very gates of heaven to see if there was anybody there. So interesting character there. Well, he also, in his will, said he wanted the observatory to be used for the study and the promotion of the study of astronomical science.
Bill W
So education and outreach is really half of our mandate there. So we have a very active visitors program. Pre-covid, we were seeing about 100,000 visitors, paid admission to our Evening Star parties and our daily guided tours. And these are people that have made reservations months in advance to be here. You don’t just stumble on to McDonald. You have to try to come and visit the observatory. It’s a very remote location.
Heather Y
Some people do try to just stumble on. I will tell you, they get here and they come to the visitor center and they start asking about the observatory. And I’m like, do you have reservations? Oh, we have to have reservations? Yes.
Chris R
Now, that’s for the star parties. What about the daily tours?
Heather Y
Right now, everything is by reservation there. The daily tours are by reservation, and so are the star parties, and so is the visitor center, just to limit the number of people. But those, it’s three dollars to do just come in to the visitor center. And I always tell everyone that it’s more than a visitor center. It’s an education center, and it has the coolest gift shop ever. So they’re going to get a lot out of just that experience if they can’t get into a star party, because if they can’t get into a star party, they can probably get reservation for the visitor center. And I think that that at least gives them a taste of the experience and makes them plan to come back and make reservations more in advance to do the star parties and the guided tours.
Chris R
One thing to think about that you mentioned to us a few minutes ago, Bill, is that the observatory as a satellite campus at the University of Texas, has the same COVID rules that the main campus has. So that might be a little more restrictive than what you might see at your average business in the area right now.
Bill W
Yeah, that’s true. I believe that things are supposed to open up in the fall, September, with the University of Texas, and hopefully we’ll be able to go back to our normal routines as far as visitation goes. But right now, having one person after another putting their eyeball to an eyepiece to look through a telescope doesn’t seem like a real good idea. Our visitor center staff has just done an amazing job keeping people engaged.
Heather Y
They have through online stuff, too. It’s been amazing the amount of remote learning opportunities that you guys have offered during COVID. And it’s really helped even people who are doing homeschooling with their kids. That’s something that I have a lot of people come through the visitor center, and they want to get information on how they can do the remote stuff with you all from all over the state.
Bill W
We’ve been doing live streaming images through a telescope that are livestreamed on our YouTube channel. The observatory has a YouTube channel and all of those programs are also recorded, so you can go back and look at them. I highly encourage it.
Chris R
Excellent. So, yeah, the visitor center itself is basically a small museum in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of informational exhibits to explore and learn about what the night sky, about what the observatory is up to. And then there have been, in the past least, pre-COVID, the tours of the facility. And that’s where you can really look at these massive telescopes, some dating back from the ’30s, each of which was at the time put in place, one of the largest in the world. And we just keep getting bigger and bigger as we go. That’s correct. So that’s a chance where you can look at the telescope, but you can’t really look through these giant telescopes telescopes, and that’s where the star parties, if things are functioning normally, would come into play, where there’s smaller telescopes, but you can actually see for yourself.
Bill W
Yeah. We have a public observatory at the Visitor Center with a variety of telescopes ranging from 24 inches on down that have been routinely in use every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday night. I think that’s a little different now under COVID. It’s, again, projected onto a screen as opposed to eyeballs to eye pieces. So they’re still doing the star parties. It’s just a different format right now.
Chris R
Well, and you know, honestly, my experience of trying to get my eye lined up on that eye piece, I might prefer a screen I can actually see.
Heather Y
I was about to say that I do prefer the screen. And my favorite part of the Star Party is really just being in the outdoor amphitheater and the high-powered laser that actually… Because I’m one of those people when someone says, Oh, there’s a big dipper. There’s this. I have no idea what they’re pointing at. And that’s my favorite part of the Star Party, is that I can actually see what these constellations are and what everything is because of the outdoor experience in the amphitheater where they’re really showing you everything that you’ve heard about and seen in pictures. But to actually have somebody point it out to you in the sky makes a huge difference.
Bill W
Well, with the really dark night sky, you don’t really need a telescope to do good astronomy. I mean, just with your naked eye, you can see the Milky Way and some star clusters and what have you. I should add, though, that two of the large research telescopes, the 107-inch and the 82-inch telescope, which, as you mentioned, Chris, was the second largest in the world when it was dedicated in 1939. Are open or have been, pre-COVID, open to the public to make reservations, typically many months in advance, to look through them visually with your eyeballs, which is very different than a smaller telescope. You get vivid colors and what have you.
Chris R
Yeah, that’s something that’s also I’ve always found interesting is that when we think about a telescope, we think about you’re putting your eye on a thing and you’re looking at the sky. But when you’re doing astronomy, that’s not what the scientists are doing. They’re not looking, they’re pointing their recording instruments. Am I right?
Bill W
Yeah, that’s correct. I’d say 80 to 90% of the science that we do at McDonald Observatory or any other major observatory is some form of spectroscopy. Spectroscopy, well, it’s not a medical procedure. It sounds very painful, but it’s actually the study of light according to color. As opposed to just taking pictures through telescopes or looking visually through telescopes, as you say, astronomers are using like a prism to smear the light out into its spectrum of colors and analyze the spectrum for the chemical composition at the source of the light. So we can actually decipher the chemistry and the physics at the distant light source, often billions of light years away.
Chris R
Yeah. Well, that reminds me that the front of the building refers visually to that spectrum. So when you Coach, if you remember, when you approach the visitor center, look for these little lines of color, and you can ask at the front desk, and they’ll tell you exactly what it means.
Bill W
Absolutely. And we have a live solar spectrum projector in the visitor center. It’s the first exhibit that you’ll bump into when you visit. We have a nine-inch telescope on the roof of the building that tracks the sun all day long and spreads the rainbow of the sun out on the wall about seven feet wide. And you can see hundreds and hundreds of dark absorption lines where there is no color, which represents the chemistry and the atmosphere of the sun. Fascinating.
Chris R
Yeah.
Heather Y
Well, and in order to keep you all working up at McDonald’s, we need to do our part in Preserve Your Night Skies, which is big mission that you’re on right now, trying to make this entire area become an International Dark Sky Reserve. That’s correct. Which is the highest level, right? As far as it goes.
Bill W
Yeah, that’s safe to say. I mean, it encompasses a large area. The International Dark Sky Association currently certifies, I believe, 18 dark sky reserves around the globe on six continents. What we proposing for the Tri-County area and a small slice of Southern Reeves County will be, if granted, that designation will be larger than the other 18 dark sky reserves around the world combined. So it’s a pretty big deal, and it has involved revisiting the existing outdoor lighting ordin in the counties and the cities that will be in the reserve.
Chris R
Yeah, we’re pretty excited at our most recent city council meeting. We had the first reading of our new updated outdoor lighting ordinance that passed unanimously. So we’re on board to do our part, hopefully, to make this happen.
Bill W
Very encouraging.
Chris R
Yeah.
Heather Y
What areas have passed the ordinances so far and or do you… What still needs to happen?
Bill W
Good question. Right now, well, pre-COVID, the city of Valentine, don’t want to leave the megalopolis of Valentine out of this, but they passed the updated language, which brings it into the International Dark Sky Association’s criteria for a reserve, followed by Jeff Davis County, I think then Reeves County, the city of Balmeré, Brewster County, Alpine did it, as you said, Chris, was first reading and passed unanimously. I think Presidio County and the city of Martha are the two last governmental entities, entities that are on our list of ordinances that need to be updated. Okay, good to know.
Chris R
Yeah. And so, Bill, you’ve had your eye on, let’s say, on the night sky for a long time now. It’s been one of your primary jobs. When I first got to Alpine, I think one of the first presentations I saw was about night sky friendly lighting from you years and years ago. So tell us a little bit about your journey here in observing the change and trying to keep it from getting worse.
Bill W
Sure. It didn’t really become officially a part of my job description until, say, 10 years ago or so to work with the surrounding communities to keep light on the ground and out of the sky. That’s really an important distinction to make. This is about dark sky. It’s not about dark ground. We are not against outdoor lighting at night. All we’re trying to do is keep light directed where you need it, keep the color temperature, It’s basically a warm white color as opposed to the cool white. I mean, if you’ve ever driven down the highway and had a pair of blue headlights come at you, you understand cool white is not really good for vision at night, and it scatters more in the atmosphere. So we’re trying to shield the light to keep it on the ground. We’re trying to keep the color temperature warm, easy on the eye at night, trying to keep the intensity no more than what’s needed for the job at hand. And then we encourage the use of adaptive controls, motion sensors, and half-night photo cells, and timers, and switches, and things like that. So light’s not in use when it’s not needed.
Chris R
Well, and I will say that seeing the before and after photos that you’ve shared of some of the facilities, hotels, oil field operations, it’s just, I would say night and day, but it’s night and then it’s really night. But it’s actually so much more attractive for one thing. You mentioned that, say in the case of an industrial situation, it’s actually a whole lot safer for the people doing the job when the light is done properly.
Bill W
Yeah, it’s true. I mean, by shielding the light, you’re reducing glare, which actually impairs your visibility. It’s like bright headlights coming at you in mind, like we said. But yeah, we’ve been able to demonstrate to the oil and gas industry, those that have adopted the The practices that we recommend and love it. I mean, we have testimonials in email a mile long from people in the industry, whether it be oil rig, crew, hands up to executive office suites that all recognize that this lighting is, in fact, better. In fact, the Railroad Commission has issued a notice to operators. They actually issued it first in 2016, again in 2019, and just recently this year have reissued it for a third time to notify oil and gas operators about the existence of McDonald Observatory, the existence of existing outdoor lighting ordinances in the county surrounding the observatory. And they sum it up basically by saying, and I’m paraphrasing, but they say that it’s cost-efficient, it improves night time visibility, and increases worker safety. So that’s very encouraging.
Chris R
It’s nice when we’re trying to suggest to people that nobody They don’t have to get told what to do on their own property, but there’s so many benefits that you can lay out that it costs less, it’s more attractive, it actually does its job better. If you’re worried about security on your property, that you can actually see the place that you’re trying to light all of these incredible benefits. And at the same time, it keeps the lightOh, by the way.out of the sky.
Bill W
Yeah.
Chris R
So there’s a whole lot of different groups that are working really hard in concert to help you with the Dark Sky Reserve project, but also the larger project of conserving our night skies. And Heather, I understand the Big Bend Conservation Alliance has a program right now?
Heather Y
Yes. The Big Bend Conservation Alliance is raising funds that go 100% to preserving the night skies right now. It is a serious starlight fundraiser is what it’s called. You can find information on their Facebook or on their website, the Big Bend Conservation Alliance. And you can purchase a poster that is a replica of a local artist, Julie Speed, did a Dark Skies picture that they have replicated and are selling with 100% of the profits going to Dark Skies Preservation.
Chris R
Yeah. And if you folks haven’t heard of Julie Speed, she is a phenomenal artist, has a really storied career, relocated to Marfa, I want to say 8 or 10 years ago. And I saw a museum exhibit in El Paso, a retrospective of her work.
Heather Y
Well, and that’s something else that we have going on right now is the At Night Exhibit at Museum of the Big Bend, which is a partnership with McDonald Observatory. So that’s somewhere that visitors and locals can go and see. It’s a juried show of 50 photographs that are focusing on nighttime photography and low light. It’s also focusing on preserving our night sky and educating people about light pollution. And that runs through September 5th. Museum of the Big Bend is open Tuesday through Saturday now from 10:00 to 4:00, so get out and see that show. It also includes some work from local high schoolers who did photography.
Chris R
Yeah, they did some workshops in some parking lots, Fort Davis and Marfa, I believe, and showed the kids how to properly expose a night sky photo. Yeah, I was at the opening for the At Night Exhibit, and there was one standout for me. So if you get a chance to get to the museum, look for this one. There are two bats that are caught drinking, so they’re flying past a water source, and one of them has his mouth open about to hit the water, and the other one, it’s just face planted in the water, taking a drink. It’s just an amazing shot. But yeah, that’s a really excellent exhibit. And of course, the museum is always a wonderful place to visit. And so, Bill, is there anything else that we haven’t touched on about dark skies that we’re thinking about now?
Bill W
Oh, well, really, I just would sum it up by saying that it’s really about education and awareness. Yes, there are lighting ordinances in place, but we don’t want to be the light police. The observatory doesn’t want to be involved in enforcing anything. We are trying to show people that it’s a win-win situation, that the lighting we’re trying to promote is really better for their night time visibility and for their electric bill. And oh, by the way, helps keep the sky dark.
Chris R
Again, the pictures tell such a strong story. I would encourage anyone to go to the McDonald Observatory website and look at the before and after pictures, look at the spectrum of the difference between the warm and cool, and see what a difference it makes just to put shields on. I found it most interesting that a timer actually makes the biggest difference because a timer is the cheapest option, really, on a lot of it, and that helps so much. I think that everyone should go and take a look at it. Really, it does tell the story of the fact that it is only going to be beneficial to you, even if it does cost a little more upfront to make the changes. I know that we’re getting ready to do some remodeling at the visitor center, and we’re going to make it all within line with the new ordinance, all the new lighting that’s going in there. So that’ll be an example where people can see it in work and see that it does work. And lighted properly is better for everybody.
Bill W
Excellent. We’re happy to help you shop for fixtures if you like.
Heather Y
Oh, good. I’ll be the fashion part of it, and you can tell me the rules. Make sure I follow it.
Chris R
So, yeah, folks, as you’re thinking about a trip out to the Big Bend area, be sure to go to the McDonald Observatory website, because if you want to participate in those programs, remember, you’re going to need a reservation, so you want to plan ahead. Now, if you go on there and there’s not a reservation open right now, why don’t you come out right now, have a look up at the sky when you’re on your own at the park and stuff, and then come back again when that reservation opens up.
Bill W
You don’t have to be at the observatory to see the night sky. I mean, you can anywhere in this region get away from the city lights and the skies are phenomenal.
Chris R
Absolutely. Thanks very much, Bill, for sharing this info with us. Thank you, Heather, as always. And thank you all for listening to Heart of the Big Bend. You can get more information about Heart of the Big Bend at visitalpinetx.com/podcast or search for Heart of the Big Bend on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast apps. And for all of you guys, listening to us on KALP/KVLF radio in Alpine, we’ll talk to you again in two weeks.
Outro
You’ve been listening to the heart of the Big Bend. Hope you liked what you heard and that you’ll find the time to experience all that the Big Ben has to offer. See you soon, partner.