Twilight Domes - A Portrait of the MAS Observatory

In 2014, our observatory director received a call from Les Leffingwell who wanted to "paint the observatory." This seem very odd that someone would just call out of the blue looking to put a new coat or two on our buildings, but it soon became apparent he was a n artist and looking for permission to enter the grounds because he wanted to paint a portrait of the observatory!

Though anyone could do such a painting based on the photos that appear here on our website, Leffingwell was wishing to enter the finished work in a Plein Air competition.  Plein Air means "open air" so the painting needed to be done on site. We gladly gave Les permission and he in turn gave us permission to show the images in this article.

Les painted on September 4-5, 2014, and Gene Hanson took these pictures of Les at work on the paintings and finally posing with the finished work.

He calls the finished painting, Twilight Domes.

If you wish to buy prints and cards of this painting, or even the original, click here.

You can see more of Les' beautiful paintings here.