George Observatory
The George Observatory is located in Brazos Bend State Park and is owned and operated by the Houston Museum of Natural Science. There are three domes – the East dome, Research Dome, and West Dome. The main telescopes in the domes are a 17-inch CDK (Corrected Dall-Kirkham), 36-inch classical Cassegrain, and 14-inch SCT (Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope). Saturday evenings are open to the public who pre-purchase tickets online at Houston Museum of Natural Science.
The Fort Bend Astronomy Club began operating the East Dome in 1990, and In 2024 we installed a new 17-inch CDK which was made possible by grants and donations from its members, the Asterion Foundation, and several other charitable foundations.
Although the primary mission of the East Dome is outreach, the East Dome is also used for research. Currently, the club’s research efforts are focused on collecting cataclysmic variable star data for submission to AAVSO. Past efforts focused on asteroid discovery, where almost 500 asteroids were discovered using the previously installed 18-inch Newtonian telescope.