Marfa Marfa Marfa Marfa Marfa!

We drove 8 hours west from Austin to spend a weekend in Marfa, a small desert town that developed a reputation as a haven for artists and bohemians in the 1970's.

We stayed at El Cosmico in a large camper van, which thankfully had a heating unit built in. Night time temperatures in the desert dropped below freezing and I did not envy the folks spending the night in the tipis and yurts on site.

We spent the days walking around downtown Marfa (which is pretty small). It's a pretty sleepy town, with a number of shops and galleries that are open "when the owner feels like it" rather than having set hours. The downtown square centered on the Presidio County courthouse is quite picturesque, and we had some great prickly pear margaritas at the Hotel Paisano. Overall it was a pretty quiet weekend in Marfa and most shops were closed - we literally saw some tumbleweeds rolling down the main street.

The highlight of the trip was an evening at the McDonald Observatory, nestled in the Davis Mountains (about 45mins drive north of Marfa). The observatory, which is a campus of the University of Texas, hosts "star parties" every night where the public can view celestial objects through several of the observatories high powered telescopes. The observatory is remote enough and high enough (almost 7,000 ft.) that there is little light pollution and the thinner atmosphere affords a good environment for star-gazing. The moon was extremely bright on our visit, which actually caused a lot of light pollution! Undaunted, we got excellent views of a number of objects:

  1. A full view of the curvature of the moon
  2. A close-up view of the sea of moisture on the moon (centered on the Gassendi crater)
  3. The pleiades star cluster
  4. The ring nebula, Messier 57 (aka. The "cosmic cheerio").
  5. Antares, a binary star.
  6. A globular star cluster, whose exact name or designation escapes me.

The drive there and back on I-10 was hard work on both of us, and we were glad to be home after the long drive.

Sitting by the fireplace at El Cosmico campground on a cold, wintry day in Marfa, Texas