Summer in CA

Sorry for not writing for so long. I actually have a few things to show and tell, but it's 1:40 am here in Pasadena, and i should go to bed. so more to come tomorrow: pictures and views from the Mt. Wilson and Mt. Palomar observatories!
-keren
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Sat, July 22 2006

Mount Wilson

The Mount Wilson Observatory, just behind this ridge of antennas, was the home of some of the most important astronomers in modern history. This is where people like Hubble discovered the nature of our universe, stretching is't known boundaries by many orders of magnitudes.

We went on a (free!) guided tour of the Observatory, and heard many interesting stories about the history of the observatory and it's scientific importance. The guide was funny, and tried hard to entertain the non-asrophysicists in the groups, with stories about famous Hollywood stars that visited the mountain (such as little Tommy Hanks, that bought a night on the 60", and Jodie Foster who spent a night there to "get into character" before filming "Contact"). For us, other things were way more interesting: the stories about the great astronomers that used these telescopes to discover the Universe, the trouble Mr. Hale had to go through to actually build these big telescopes (at the time, each one was the largest one ever built!), and the goat's trail they used to bring the pieces up the mountain, using donkeys!!

There are two large telescopes there, a 60" (1.5m) dome and a 100" (2.5m) dome (for comparison: the Wise observatory in Israel is 40"/1m.), two solar observatories, a few smaller telescopes, and an interferometer. The location on top of that 5,710 ft (1,742 m) mountain, above LA, has a very steady atmosphere, which is very important for astronomical observations. The light from LA and the cities around it indeed get in the way.


These are the solar towers. At the top, there are mirrors that reflect the light from the sun down to ground level, where it is imaged by special cameras and spectrographs. The towers are 60 feett (18 m) and 150 feet (46 m) tall.
People are still using these towers to study things like magnetic fields on the Sun, solar spots, etc.


These are the 60" and 100" domes. On the right, the 100" telescope.

...more about Palomar in a bit!