Oil Field Flares and Lights Creeping Closer to the Famed McDonald Observatory
The University of Texas’ McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains in West Texas is one of the darkest spots in the continental United States. Lights from the Permian Basin oilfield to the north, the center of U.S. oil and gas activity, are creeping closer to the 85-year-old observatory, home to one of the world’s largest optical instruments. The sate’s oil and gas regulator issued nearly 11,000 drilling permits in the Permian Basin in 2014.
FORT DAVIS — In the high mountains of a wild desert, day drains from the sky and night lights appear.
There’s no moon. Just Mercury chasing the setting sun in the west, Jupiter rising to the east and another golden light emerging on the northern horizon.
The view from the McDonald Observatory, considered the crown jewel of the University of Texas System, includes the glow from the Permian Basin oil field, incandescent with the work of 24-hour drilling, fracking and gas flaring.
Four in every 10 drilling rigs working in the U.S. are in the Permian Basin, and the prolific oil province is creeping closer to the observatory, where astronomers depend on the veil of desert night in the Davis Mountains of the Big Bend region.
