3 0 miles from the bright lights of the big city, the Fort Bend Astronomy Club has established a scientific outpost. In the midst of Brazos Bend State Park, the observatory's facilities are perched on the highest knob of ground along the immediate coastal plain. It is officially owned by the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and includes several shelters for protecting its permanent collection of large-scale telescopes, plus a number of concrete pads for itinerant setups. Beneath the white domes is a welcome center and auditorium which has long outgrown its space. To the novice observer, the setup is reminiscent of someone cobbling together a space facility with Home Depot leftovers. The reality is that a number of significant astronomical bodies have been discovered from this spot in the woods.
