Texas Star Party

One of the events and locations that Mark Gravengood and Jackie Archer visit in the book Rocinante is the Texas Star Party. This is a real star party that is held every year at a real location, the Prude Guest Ranch just six miles (9.6 km) outside of Ft. Davis, in west Texas. The ranch hosts the event in late April or in May and always near the time of new moon. The nearest small airports are Marfa or Alpine, and the nearest commercial flights are in Midland.

The McDonald Observatory is near the Guest Ranch. It is run by the University of Texas at Austin and is one of the finest observatories on earth. During the week-long Star Party they host special guided tours of the observatory. Trust me, the tour is worth a visit. The area around the observatory has some of the finest dark sky in the continental United States.

More information on the event and the locations may be found at these links:
http://texasstarparty.org
The Texas Star Party on wikipedia
http://www.prude-ranch.com
http://www.fortdavis.com   the Fort Davis city web site
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Davis,_Texas Fort Davis, TX on Wikipedia
http://mcdonaldobservatory.org

There is a placemark for this location in the downloadable Rocinante set at Google Earth and the Spearfish Lake Tales.