Ana Chandler points south to a dip in the Davis Mountains. Often, when she and her husband are sky-watching, “Omega Centauri appears in that notch,” she said.
Omega Centauri is a globular star cluster—millions of stars so crammed together that their light merges. It’s just one of a skyful of reasons the Chandlers moved from Central Texas to this spot between Fort Davis and the University of Texas’ McDonald Observatory.
Six or eight nights a month, weather permitting, the Chandlers open the roll-off roof of their observatory and focus 25-and 30-inch reflecting telescopes on whatever objects are on their current list.
They are visual astronomers, Jim Chandler explained. They actually look through eyepieces rather than attaching cameras and other equipment to capture images and data. “There’s just something about billion-year-old photons directly hitting