Atoka

I joined the Texas Astronomical Society (TAS) at the first of the year and have enjoyed their meetings (great speakers) and their local star parties.

Yesterday I finally made it up to the club's "dark site" property in Atoka, Oklahoma (only about 1.7 hours from Dallas).

No, that is not a pic of a weird church next to a cemetery -- it is the Al Bowen Observatory next to part of the viewing field (those are not "plots", but rather concrete pads and power poles for setting up telescopes in the field.


I went to the site with Max, the club VP, to do some painting and general maintenance to the dome.



Here are the stairs leading up to the dome -- it looks like a submarine. The red lights are used everywhere to preserve one's dark adapted eye at night.


Inside the dome, Max inspects our re-painting efforts. He is a very cool and interesting dude. We had a good afternoon of philosophising.

That scope is a big 16" Meade SCT. I look forward to heading back to the site at night and taking a peek through that sucka!

The Otaka site is FREE to all members of TAS. What a deal!