Passer au contenu
Avoir des questions? Appelez le service client au 866-252-3811 (L-V 8h-17h CT) !
EXPLORE THE JUNE 2025 ASTRONOMY CALENDAR NOW!

Astronomical League Live XXXVIII

 

Transcript:

on top of a towering California Peak above mist and fog high up where the air
is the clearest for stargazing the $10 million apparatus built by the Rockefeller foundation for the
California Institute of Technology there the super giant telescope with the 200 in Mirror to magnify Heavenly objects a
million times eight times greater than any other telescope the moon brought to
within 20 mi of the Earth the secrets of the canals of Mars to be revealed
in the secret of life they call it the eye of the world but wait just a minute I forgot it's only a model
[Music]
oh [Music]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
a [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
he
[Music] oh
[Music]
oh [Applause]
[Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
oh
well hello everyone this is Scott Roberts from explore scientific and the explore Alliance and this is the
38th uh astronomical League live program uh with special guest Don NAB Terry
man's on with me by phone right now Terry you want to uh introduce yourself
there hi U I'm Terry man I am the secretary of the league and co-hosting
with Scott Roberts for as he said the 38th Al live yeah and tonight tonight we
have some really interesting a really interesting talk um I think is Carol
there Carol is here okay and Carol ore will be updating us from the leag so
Scott do do you want me to just take over from here yeah take over and I will switch over to Carol here okay thank you
very much Hi terol how are you hello Terry good to be here again yeah well thank you for coming U
maybe you would like to update us a little bit on Alcon a little bit about what's going on in the league yeah well
I'm uh glad you asked that uh things are coming along very well roughly nine
weeks from now uh we will be gathering in Kansas City actually a little bit less than that I guess about seven weeks
now for Alcon 2024 and I'm going to share my screen
Scott
okay for that convention are July 17th through the 20th and Carol you're not
sharing yet we're not sharing yet okay let me go back here let's see here
I'm getting closer how's that not
yet not yet you say no okay all right
let's
go how's that nope not yet oh this is the not for technical
difficulties sounds like it is technical difficulties that's could just talk your
through it if you'd like yeah I'm got one more try and then we're just gonna talk it through that okay that's cool
all right one more try don't think that did either okay uh Alcon will be held
July 17 through 20th in Kansas City that will be at the Double Tree by Hilton in
Overland Park Kansas and the in-person uh attendance the uh fee is for single
is $0000 couples 150 and youth 18 and under
$45 and one of the things we're doing that we've scheduled live for this outcon for the first time ever is a
streaming option uh and we've kept the price as the same as the enderson
registration it'll be $100 for single couples 150 youth uh 18 and under
45 uh one of the things that we've heard from time to time and back in 2021 when
we did our virtual only Alcon we heard that people would like the option of
being able to uh tune in online uh many of our members uh said they could hear
the uh the talks better in many ways by being online if they were in in person
so uh with that in mind we have set up that option for this year and if we get
sufficient uh interest in that we will have that available as well also uh the option for lodging is
at the Double Tree uh and there is a place on our website astrol league.org
to go directly to registering for the hotel which is the first step in making
sure you have lodging for the event uh so I would encourage you all to see see
us on July 17th through 20th we have lots of good uh things going on starting
with Wednesday night we will be at Union Station and one of the features that just came on this week in fact was we'll
be going there for the planetarium show but if someone is arriving early in Kansas City uh within the next couple of
days they're starting a uh exhibition about Walt Disney from the early years
his 100th anniversary he started in Kansas City and there's a major exhibit
there also at Union Station during the visit it runs through September so that's something that your family
members or yourself if you have a few spare minutes during Alcon it would be something very interesting to
see then one of our main uh events is on Thursday night and Dr David Levy will be
at Linda Hall uh to uh share his
uh the rare books in the rare book room but David's own personal telescope his
first telescope uh is on loan at uh the lindal
library and also his observing logs for his comets that he's discovered so that
should be a very fascinating uh uh event we still have some openings left so I
encourage you to jump on soon and get registered for that then on H Friday
night we will be going to Pal Observatory which is the flagship of the
Astronomical Society of Kansas City and before that though we will have the
starbq at the Overland Park AR burum and after that we'll go on down to Pal
Observatory so there's a lot of uh different options for everybody as far as speakers we will have uh the Star
Trek uh Tim Russell will be there as well and that promises to be a very fun
event as well so I hope to see a lot of you there and we will talk to you later
and if you have any information you need uh get a hold of us at al2024
org and now back to you Scott thank you okay all right so let's um let's uh uh
go back to Terry here Terry I'm going to let you introduce David Levy um and he's
got a uh very special reading he'd like to get so thank you Scott I appreciate it David
thank you so much for being on tonight I really appreciate it well thank you thanks Terry and it's
really wonderful to be here tonight I have a couple of short uh poems and
proses to read to you the first one is in Latin and it is from the official
minutes of Galileo's trial in 16 32 at eoad D
verum alas denter Tortura and it officially tells it
officially announces that Galileo is under the threat of uh torture we
condemn you to the formal prison of this holy office during our pleasure and by way of salutory penance he enjoined it
for three years to come he repeat one a week to seven penitential
Pals uh this was a very harsh sentence and a lot of Galileo's friends actually
beseeched the pope to to let Galileo serve out his sentence
at his home which the pope agreed to and it kind of never got changed until John
Paul II not that long ago actually said that the church had made a mistake in
condemning probably the one of the greatest scientists of all time the way they did the second one comes from John
Milton Paradise Lost and uh he mentions angels and Satan
and things but he also mentions one humor as when By Night the glass of
Galileo less assured observe imagined lands and regions in the moon for pilot
from am missst the cycles Os or Samuel's first appearing t a cloudy spot and
finally we come to uh Abraham P's
beautiful biography magnificent biography of Albert Einstein PA settle
is the Lord and uh he has these words to say on
Einstein's discovery that the perian procession of Mercury's orbit could be
explained through general relativity this discovery was I Believe by far the
strongest emotional experience in Einstein's scientific life perhaps in
all his life nature had spoken to him and on that note back to you Terry and
thank you thank you at least now I can see everybody I feel it's strange being
on the phone because it you can't see anybody and it's I don't think I like it
at all I still haven't got it on the laptop yet I'm on my iPad so welcome
everybody now I feel more at home all right um David thank you that was
beautiful um I'm still having trouble figuring out which end of my iPad I need to look at uh thank you for being there
uh we really appreciate it and Carol thank you so much for the update on the league everybody is looking forward to
going to Casey we're all we're going to have a great time there we always do so thank you both so much and Scott
thank you for trying to help me get through all the oh no problem no problem
well I appreciate it so um I think what we'll do now is we were going to go to
Don NAB which I want to leave I want to read um I'll tell you a little bit about
him I'm going to read a little bit and some I'm just going to do because I've had the great pleasure of knowing Don
for quite a while but Don nab's earliest memories of the Stars Trace back to the
day as a Boy Scout gazing up at copia overhead and that igniting a deep
fascination with the night sky and astronomy a dedicated Enthusiast Don is
an active member of four astronomy clubs in the mid east region of the
astronomical League notably his principal affiliation is with the Chester County Astronomical Society
which he joined in 2006 within a year BEC of becoming a member he assumed the
vital role of observing chair Treasurer roles I should say observing CH chair
Treasurer and astronomical League coordinator solidifying his commitment
to that organization in addition to these roles he later took on the position of
educational co-chair in 2019 during Greenbank StarQuest Don learned of a
pressing need within the mid east region of the astronomical League which we call Merill the current chair faced health
challenges and needed to step down following a conversation with John GS uh
at the Greenbank Observatory camping field Don graciously offered to assume
their the chair's responsibility facilitating a smooth transition for the incumbent's chair retirement within a
year of taking this role he spearheaded the creation of a dedicated website
Facebook page for Mar enhancing and that enhanced the organization's overall president uh
presence now I'm going to add my own information that I do know about Don he
has been involved in many many League projects so much he was a a recipient of
a special award last year um for all of the help he has given the league so and
I have known Don and I personally I chair the Great Lakes region so he
helped me design and build the website for the Great Lakes region he helped
design and mostly built the Alcon virtual website Don's help has been
crucial and it has helped us so much and we all are familiar and we all know each other now so um Don is just honestly one
of the most amazing people I've known but I'm going to back up just a little bit as a reminder Green Bank start our
Quest is coming up on July 3rd through 6 if you haven't checked their website check it out you're going to really find
some of the nicest people there are in astronomy there uh there's great food available and the star party and the
facility are amazing and then on top of that Don will be giving a talk at
Greenbank so please uh take a look at their website the star party is always
good always fun so don with all of that uh I how about if you go ahead and talk
about your talk all right well you uh you preempted a little bit of what I'm going to
present but that's okay okay go right ahead and present it anyway so uh all
right let me share my screen and see if I can get no
grumblings here tonight I've got them all let me start the
slideshow coming through Scott coming through okay so Mount
palar and the hail 200 in telescope this was the most important
telescope in the world from 1949 to 1992 and uh it's just an amazing amazing
machine so uh but here's what Terry already mentioned this this is where you
preed me I'm going to talk about Green Bank Star Quest to put a plugin for it this is a wonderful event this is a on
the last morning they always take a group picture this is from a couple years years ago but uh it's it's really
fun my wife and I going this year and it's wonderful to camp in the
view of this the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope and you can do tours when I toured uh we only got up as
high as here we other friends had gone to the very tip top but the elevator wasn't working so we went to here it's
an amazing trip but if you're scared of heights do not go camping field is great as large
there's bathrooms nearby there's hour is up the hill it's a it's it's a great place the science center we're going to
have our mid east region annual meeting here um it's a it's a really wonderful
event there's a couple hundred people and there are talks all day long there's a key keyn note talk every night and
then there's observing in the field at night and the sky is excellent green uh
Green Bank is sort of in the middle of nowhere it's not the end of the Earth but you can see it from there so uh it's
it's a wonderful place so how big is the observatory we're talking about it is really big all right
so I'm going to talk about the history of uh the hail telescope in Mount palar and then a walkthrough of a tour that uh
some friends of some dear friends of ours and I did a few years ago so but it's a really amazing amazing Place put
it on your bucket list so so the story of the uh The Hil telescope in Mount
palar is really the story of one man and that's this guy George Ellery hail he uh he was driven he uh he worked
to found several significant observatories and uh that included yeres
Mount Wilson Palmore and hail solar Observatory George Eller hail built the
world's largest telescope four times uh every time he built one it was bigger than the one before the largest scope in
the world four times he did uh he hired ount Wilson he hired Giants of the field
harlo shapley and Edwin Hubble and they did some of the most amazing scientific work at the time of any time
really sadly George elale was he was a troubled individual he was uh he was
tortured he would uh he suffered from insom insomnia often he had frequent
debilitating headaches he was possibly schizophrenic he claimed to have regular
visits from an elf who acted as an advisor so he was a fascinating and tortured
individual he's honored with a name of the crater on Mars named Hill crater and
one on the moon was also the hail 22-year solar cycle name for him and
asteroid 1024 hail is named after him so yeres was opened in 1897 it ran
for 121 years under the control of the University of Chicago how many other
scientific uh institutions can you think of that operator for 121 years 2018 it
shut down and was sold to a or or transferred not even sold transferred to a nonprofit the yeris foundation and
then it reopened in 2022 after Renovations so this refractor to this day is the
largest refractor ever built for night sky observing now I have to qualify that because there is one larger refractor as
a swed one is 43 in but is a solar telescope so to this day the Y 40in
refractor is the largest night sky observing telescope ever and and ever will be built ever will be built so
here's a picture of the scope this is the equator equatorial Mount and you might recognize one fellow in this
picture anyone see him that yes that is Albert Einstein okay so there he
is Mountain Wilson was next so H hail recognized that he could not
build a larger lens for a refractor so he had to go to reflecting
telescopes uh Mount Wilson was the first place this is north of uh Los Angeles in
California uh so after he built the world's largest refractor he built the world's largest reflector at 60 in and
that was completed in 1908 this is the telescope that was used to measure the size of the Milky Way and
where we are in it for the first time now when you look at this picture anyone who has been to Star parties almost
anyone does ask photography you can see this looks to me sort of like a a me
lx200 on a wedge right so this is an an actually an ALT as Mount uh alternate
asmith and altitude and this is the part that spins this is this will spin in the
uh right Ascension axis and this is the axis here for the declination so it is a
fairly conventional design it's just huge all right
uh he he'll abandon that design from the next one the next largest telescope in
the world from 17 to 1949 was in Mount Wilson 100 in this is
the telescope that Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies you know until now until then everyone thought that
galaxies were part of the Milky Way they called them nebula they thought it was only there was only one Galaxy Hubble
using rch discovered that galaxies are not part of the Milky Way and that the universe is expanding this was this this
shook the scientific world and this is the telescope he used to do it so this is a completely different design I want
you to try to remember look at these these yolks these these Square structures this is going to look
familiar when we see the 200 scope but there's these two structures and then this is the declination axis so the
right Ascension axis goes up through here this is the declination access access so keep that in mind when we see
the 200 in so and hail said you know with Starlight falling every square mile the
best we could do is gather up gather up uh area of 100 square
inches in diameter so he said we have to do more than that so he said he designed he hired
people engineered to design the 200 in telescope so here is a cutaway this is an amazing drawing this is done by one
of the engineers named Russell Porter anyone involved in amateur astronomy probably has heard this guy's
name because he was one of the founders of stalhane convention in Vermont and this is the longest running astronomical
gathering in the United States all right so he was he was a founder of that but look at this drawing this is incredibly
engineering drawing and anyone has a polar equatorial Mount knows the the
polar scope would look right through here to line at the north North Star right uh the
declination axis is here this is the right Ascension axis and if you want to see the size of this thing that's that's
a man that gives you some idea of the scale of this project it was
unprecedented the 200 in telescope in Mount palar for that generation it was
like the Apollo was for my generation okay maybe what the the Hubble is now or what what the James web is now but this
was the premier scientific achievement and event of the time it was all over
the news so Palmore Mountain was designed picked as a place actually the seeing at
palore was not as good as Mount Wilson but it was within the day's travel of Pasadena because this was going to be
run by California Institute of Technology and um this is only they in
Pasadena this is less than days drive so they picked polymor mountain is North of San Diego
[Music] um and it's uh it's fairly High I'm not sure the elevation this is this is right
before um construction started so in 1934 the roads to mount
palore were pretty bad uh and it was recognized there was no way that they
could be able to haul a huge telescope and a huge mirror up this mountain so so
the uh the county of San Diego recognized this was a a chance for some real real good notoriety so they said
they're going to build a road after a couple years though they ran out of money and the project stalled
but then the California um Department of Highways came in got together and they finished the road so this was called the
highway to the Stars was completed in 1937 and it weaves it way up Palomar
Mountain so here is an aerial view of the site this is the same field that we saw a couple slides ago in snow cupboard
down at the bottom here is the uh the tth city of the construction workers this white area over here this is where
the the observatory is going to be built and here these are some of the
foundation structures for the uh The Observatory here's April 1937 things are
starting to roll uh consolidated Ste of Los Angeles did a lot of the construction I want to point out here
this is September 3 but these arcs you can see these forming when these meet in the middle these were absolutely
essential to the structure because from this they suspended a crane capable of lifting 60 tons and that's what was
needed to haul the telescope Parts up to the observatory floor so you can see the
arcs there here's the Dome under construction it's one of the earlier domes that is
already at Mount palar in Spring of 83 the shutters were
about to go on here and then the Dome would finally be weathertight be uh be
fully enclosed again this is the crew from Consolidated steel working on the
Dome and here is the completed Dome ready to receive the 200 in telescope
this uh this looks like something from the science fiction movie the 50s I expect to see a giant ant where a
Godzilla come crawling over the mountain at any moment to attack the
observatory so here's the sem now this is this is up above here is the crane this is a hole in the floor lifting the
parts of the telescope up using that 60 ton crane to bring the parts to the observatory
floor and by the way before I forget to mention palar Observatory and Caltech
were very generous in letting me use these historic images I contacted them and they're uh the media repy Flanders
was very very helpful in getting me these images to to use uh so here now if
you remember back to that picture of the 100 in telescope the square boxes this
is the equivalent on the 200 in these are round tubes instead of squares so
this is part of the uh part of the Yol and the truss assembly so here is the telescope
assembly and this is what in the previous scope they were Square tubes this is essentially the the the right
Ascension axis so this points up toward the North Star this is the bearing for
the declination axis it was hydrostatic so it actually had oil pumped through it as it turned it was practically
frictionless and in case you haven't noticed them yet there's a man that
tells you the size of this structure it is it is unbelievable again the the Apollo project of the
era so late 39 the Dome was completed they scope was installed but it was going to take several years to get this
thing installed and working now I'll show you a quick picture you see in the U on the camera here this is a a book
called The Perfect machine I'll admit I haven't read the whole thing yet but this machine really was the perfect
machine it uh it is such a machine of precision and strength and size it's
it's the perfect machine there's a man there give you the size of the this whole
structure wow so let's talk about the mirror for a moment uh this is actually my wife and I that's her over here on
the right quite a few years ago probably 15 years ago tour the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning New York uh the first
mirror they they tried to make the mirror uh General Electric tried to make it out of quartz they were unable to
after spending about half million dollars they pulled the plug on that and went to Corning Glass
Company they had just developed this brand new glass that if any one of you go into your kitchen you could probably
find some of it right now called Pyrex so this mirror is made out of Pyrex this is the they started with 30 in did the
60 120 developing that the technology wasn't developed they had to develop the
technology as they went uh one of the biggest problems these were these holes are there to reduce the weight of the
glass otherwise it would deflect and deform under its own weight these were fused silica and
they could take the heat but the supports for them could not they finally ended up going to Steel uh the first
mirror failed this is actually the failed mirror and you can see the cracks in it uh they sorted out the technology
again as any real advancement in science they developed it as they went forward
and they uh they were able to get the second mirror and it was at the time the largest piece of glass ever made largest
single piece of glass ever made and again was a media event the uh they
shipped the mirror from Corning New York by train out toward the area of Pasadena
and then it was moved by truck I gave this talk a few years ago at an assisted living facility uh west of Philadelphia
and one of the attendees remembered watching this mirror be go go past where
he lived I'm not sure by train or or by truck in California but he remember seeing this in the mirror go
by so so here the uh the mirror was taken to Pasadena where the Caltech has
an optical lab and um this is them doing the grinding the grinding took what 13
years and they had to remove four and a half tons of glass that's that's that's
how much of a project this was here's the finished
mirror and in 1948 see they dedicated the scope before the mirror was even
finished this is the uh dedication serm now sadly George Ellery hail who was
really the man who made this telescope happen he passed away in 1938 so to honor him they name this the hail
telescope so here's a picture of the crowd under this telescope so now we can see sort of the design this thing these
again these round tubes are what was Square on the earlier Design This is the scope itself it is
hanging on these bearings this is the declination access this is the right Ascension access
and again another shot of the uh dedication
ceremony there's not many telescopes you can think of or or that observatories that are honored on a a stamp but in
1948 the United States government issued the stamp just to honor Mount Palomar
again the Apollo shot of the time so now I'm going to go into today's Mount Palomar okay this is one of the most
magnificant structures in all of astronomy all right so history is done now we're going to look at today's today
scoop and this was a tour that uh my wife and I and some friends took a few
years ago a quick look at a couple pictures so here is a here's the Orion
Nebula here's the Helix nebula and here is the jellyfish nebula
super Supernova Remnant IC 433 these pictures were not taken by Mount palore
maybe you thought they were but they were not these were taken by this man here this is my dear friend Brent Krab
he in's wife Mary who's to Brent's wri um lived in that's my wife Barbara the
Brent about to push him down the hill I think um they live in Fountain Valley
which is close enough to Disneyland that when the fireworks go off at the end of the night you can hear them okay so they
they live in tremendously light polluted Skies but somehow Brent being the as
photography wizard that he is he gets pictures like I just showed you a couple slides back he very talented very
amazing engineer so this is our tour group you get to Mount palore you need to sign up for a tour there's a a
visitor center to go through um the drive from Brent Mary's house was
over two hours Brent D was there in his van and this is the current highway to the Stars it's come a long way from uh
what it was back in the 1930s but it uh you go up and up and up the mountain
till you get to the top and not far on the top there is this magnificant structure it just uh it's just to stand
and look at it it just makes you an all the only thing I can compare this to I mean I remember the emotions I felt when
I when I saw this the only I can compare it to is uh after this visit another visit we went to California with brenon
Mary they took us to see uh up in Los Angeles one of the space shuttles was on display I forget which one it was now
maybe Endeavor I'm not sure but similar emotion I remember standing underneath
the space shuttle and just being overcome with emotion it nearly brought me to tears same thing with Mount palar
put this on your list if you're an amateure astronomer and you in any way you can ever get to see this this
telescope and this structure you owe it to yourself to do it it is it is an unforgettable
experience so here's the uh a current day overhead view and right here is
where the visitor center is parking lot Visitor Center then you you know the tours usually you have to wait it takes
some time to you get in you have to wait your turn they collect people then you you can Mill around we walk down and
we're Milling around the telescope I want to point out one special thing here's a here's a bit of a
closeup you know some of these structures like this water tower they're from the very beginning when polymor was built they're still there but I want to
draw your attention to this little round piece down here take a look at that I'll
zoom in on it this was a concrete mirror blank they cast out a concrete and uh
estimate the the same weight as the the 200 in Mirror because they were unwilling to RIS risk the mirror in
balancing the scope as anyone knows who sets up an equatorial Mount you have to balance the scope and this scope is no
different than that it needs to be perfectly balanced uh so that actually surprisingly small motor can can move it
so they use this this concrete blank you see down here in the picture but you know we're Milling around here waiting
for the Tour St it's kind of warm so it served another purpose right that's that's the blank to another purpose it's
also a nice resting Spot while you're waiting for your tour to start so that's that's my wife waiting for the tour
casting some snooze before the uh before the tour starts so just a a few specs the uh
specification the upper Dome th000 tons that's about 500 SUVs okay that's what
this upper Dome weighs each of these doors weighs about as much as 60 SUVs
weighs okay and like all of us know glass mirror is affected by temperature
4 foot spacing between the inner outer wall to try to insulate the uh the building and that's why it's painted
white to reflect the sunlight to try to keep the daytime heating to a
minimum so the hill telescope use what's called a horseshoe Mount now here is the
Horseshoe okay that is the Horseshoe part so it's held up by this this yolk
that replaces a polar bearing you could never have a polar bearing strong enough so again this is the right Ascension
axis and then there's bearings here that is the declination axis for the telescope mirror of course at the
bottom and I was surprised I visited the U the uh founder of our local astronomy
club a few weeks ago in his apartment he has a model uh he didn't build it this
was built by his father now Ed lurot the founder of our club is 95 so you can imagine if his father built this how old
this this this model is you know I was growing up I was building Redstone Rocket models or xp70 supersonic you
know bomber models but uh he was building this is the model built back
then that's how popular this telescope was and surprising why is the train there you might ask what's that train doing there the telescope and the train
are the same scale so that gives you idea of the size of this amazing telescope this perfect
machine so a lot of people call Mount palar the Cathedral of astronomy and
when in there you had the feeling of being in a cathedral so what was first light all right it was NG 2261 Hubble's variable
nebula it was image this is not the image but this is an image of that nebula but not the image it was taken so
who do you think they put in charge of the first light Imaging none other than Edwin Hubble only makes sense
right there's first light with the largest telescope in the
world so it has done many things you know it's it's maybe uh been been
eclipsed by other telescopes at this point uh what took over from the uh 200
inch was the kek telescope in Hawaii that's what 300 some inches I think but
quazars were first identified by Spectre from the hail telescope when Haley's Comet came back
in 1982 it was found this is this is not the image this is an image of H of Hal's
Comet but uh the hill telescope was used in 198 four years before actual return
they they picked it up on The Hil telescope and as recent as this April
okay December 2023 the hail telescope started um is
the receiving antenna for NASA's psyche Mission now if you think remember this
the psyche mission is going to a metal Rich dense asteroid okay and uh so the H
how the hell telescope is acting as the receiving antenna for a laser experiment so to this day this telescope is still
functioning active very important scientific instrument so just you know last month the psyche uh spacecraft sent
a message by laser 140 million miles to The Hil telescope so this is far from
being an obsolete piece of equipment it is up to date so they parked the telescope standing up during the day and the
mirror can be lowered and that is done every two years here's the mirror or every two years is
lowered because it has to be like anyone who has a reflecting telescope knows every once in a while you have to clean
and sometimes recat so they strip it and recode it every two years and here's the mirror entirely
stripped and here's a good picture of this is the a top is the before the re cleaning and resurfacing and here's the
after you just look at the quality of the reflection CS you can see very easily how much the the refinishing has
refurbished the mirror another view looking up at the uh
the giant trust tubes can I interrupt you for a minute Don sure I'm not seeing any slides does everybody else have
slides I I see his presentation I do okay I'll see what happened here because
I don't have it okay thanks sorry Don that's great I'm I'm monitoring it on uh
PN I see him coming through so I think we're okay okay sorry that's okay so
here is the uh the Horseshoe we saw earlier and this is what supports the Horseshoe for it for it to rotate to uh
span the sky of course this is the declination access here's then you can go up in the
part of the tour you go up above this is the level of the Dome now you can see this is the D Dome floor and you can
look down the telescope and here is the Prime Focus gauge so so Astron would spend all night
in the Prime Focus cage uh I'm not sure they how they whe they went to the bathroom but I guess
they figured something out I guess they would have to but they would spent all night up here you know this scope uh had
tremendous accuracy but they still needed to make sure it was aiming at the target with very high accuracy so this
there was no such thing as automatic guiding in this time so people would spend their entire night up in this in
this Prime Focus cage so you can walk around once you're
up they they go that let you go outside of the Dome and uh you can go all the way around the view is amazing we're
going to talk about this telescope this Dome and the telescope in it in a few minutes um but it was an incredible view
what you don't want to do if you're afraid of heights you don't want to do this because it's an open crate and if
you're afraid of heights you probably don't want to take this part of the tour so I want to spend uh one telescope
we're going to talk about is actually decommissioned but not poar is so significant in the world of astronomy I
want to talk about the 18-in Schmid camera at Mon palar and this ties into Dr David Levy who's one of our co-hosts
tonight so um so the this is the Dome that had the 18 inrent camera it was
built in 1936 and was the first operational telescope it was decommissioned in the mid 20 like 2006
or so decommissioned but uh it it for many many years uh here it is in the uh
the shop at Caltech okay and this this scope had a film area
that's 9 degrees in diameter that's the size of 17 full moons so David Levy and
many many astronomers but David Levy along with uh Gan and Carolyn Shoemaker
did a lot of Imaging with this scope and this is when they discovered Comet Schumer Levy this was big news back when
it was discovered they did they did it with the ATN Schmid telescope so here's a photo uh this is this is not from the
18 schet but that that is the telescope they used to discover the comet and uh
that alone that Discovery alone could be a story for an hour presentation it is an amazing story um worth reading Dave's
autobiography just to get that story and it's an incredible story of discovery and perseverance uh but here's a
composite photo that was assembled from uh of uh Hubble Space Telescope this is
this is Comet Schumer levy9 and it is a series a broken up comet is a is a series of blobs of comet
hurling toward Jupiter you can see one of the Mir the shadow of one of the moons on Jupiter maybe that's the moon
in front I guess there's the moon there's the shadow okay so um
this is a photo um I attended NE where explor scientific was set up and
astronomical league and telev and many many other this is the Northeast astronomy Forum in suffred New York just
this past April David Levy gave her a wonderful presentation and he is holding the original films of the discovery of
Shoemaker Levy I now why extrem record le9 so important so why is it in in the
news for mon months and months well it's because of what could have happened to us so I'm going to suggest that this is
the most frightening photo of all time this is taken with the Hubble after Chum Lev n slammed into Jupiter why is it
frightening because this is the size of the Earth okay this is the same scale if
one of those just one just a piece of one of these these fragments had instead of being caught by Jupiter had hit the
earth we wouldn't be having this presentation tonight none of would be here that would make the this this would
make the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs look like a rock thrown into a
pond so this is I'm going to suggest the most frightening photograph of all
time so I'm going to finish up just just two two other photos here of uh some my
favorite photos of Mount palar again thank you to palar observatory in Caltech for letting me use these photos
that's one with the moon over to of it and here's one with the star trails at night
and I last tribute to George El halil his his famous quote make no small dreams make no small plans dream no
small dreams and that's it I will stop to share Scott okay great great that was
fantastic Don thank you thanks sir yeah I haven't been to Palomar in a long long
time I just walking on the grounds you feel like you're really somewhere special it's Hallowed Ground it really
is it is yeah yeah it definitely is when you're inside it feels like you're in a
temple you know it just really does the cathedral the Cathedral of astronomy yeah it really does feel like that it
really does yeah being up there at night uh because I went up there at night when I was there too I don't know it just
feels you just feel like you're part of History almost being there at night you know everything seems to change except
that big wide Observatory yeah yep it's uh it's uh something you have to do you
owe it to yourself if you're an amateur astrometer to see Mount Poore definitely definitely so all right um
does anybody have any questions no I mean they people
commented that they uh you know that they love Palomar um that uh you know
some people have visited there uh Lori says we thoroughly enjoyed a tour of the Palomar facility several years ago it
was definitely worth a trip um you know and uh other people that
will watch us after this live uh portion runs I'm sure will comment and talk
about their experience at Palomar it is uh it definitely has that special
feeling so wasn't Palomar one was the The Observatory that was in danger when
they had the fire a couple years ago or four or five years ago when there was a fire or was that uh it has been close to
fire before um uh it is uh but I think what you're remembering is the Mount Wilson
Observatory that had Flames actually lapping up at the observatory buildings
so and griffith Griffith was also in danger the Griffith that's right yes
yeah in La yeah that and Mount Wilson were both here and that's that's why I want to go on the next trip out there to California I want to go to Mount Wilson
with Brenton Mary okay you'll love it yeah you'll feel like you're history even feels richer when you're there you
know it does yeah it it just has that feeling because it just does uh it
they're all amazing places David I think you had your hand up that you wanted to say something I do want to say something
Don your lecture was excellent with AIT
e and a capital T it is so
wonderful you are certainly correct that the 60in was the largest telescope in the
world for a time however earlier than that there was
the um the uh Leviathan of Parson toown a 72 inch in the 19th century that was
there but it was decommissioned by the time the uh six 60 was put on and then
after that the Dominion astrophysical Observatory put up the 72 in which was
the largest telescope in the world for two months two months after that after
that said never again and two months later the 100 inch hooker telescope
opened and then came the 200 inch wonderful Superior excellent
presentation thank you Don thank you David means a lot to hear you say that
and Don I have to agree with you that picture of Shoemaker leing n oh my gosh you know I remember seeing that when it
came out and I mean it was it was a scary thing because for the next couple of months all you could think all I
thought of that was wow if that would have happened to Earth you know what what would that have been like and you
know for quite a while it was a real scary feeling and you know there's always still a possibility you never
know what's going to happen but that picture really brought it home you know yeah yep y made you
think yeah and it will happen to the Earth one day we don't
when but that will happen at some point in the future yeah yeah
definitely it's through the efforts of uh uh David Levy and the shoemakers that um you know gave
congress the wake-up call you know that this is a real thing this could really happen Okay we're watching it happen to
another planet um uh uh not might be us one day but will be us one day okay and
we if we can do something we should and so you know I directly attribute the um
the dart Mission the double asteroid redirect uh uh uh mission to U uh the
Genesis of that had to have occurred with David Levy and the shoemakers and
um you know they're uh you know they're not only they're work in uh
understanding you know with Gan of course impacts but uh this whole team uh
you know to um to show the world that uh impacts are a real thing you know it's
not something that just happened a long time ago but they're happening now okay they will continue to happen and um so
but uh you know humans are amazing in that they can figure out how to do
things and uh and so we moved in Asteroid uh I'm sure there'll be other
uh missions where we'll move um other large bodies in in our solar
system so just to protect us so uh you know I I owe uh you know deep gratitude
to the levy Shoemaker team uh for for making uh that wakeup call happened to
Congress so I think we all do yeah that was
incredible yep it was well the day that they actually move something that was going to hit us we will
I think that there'll be statues made you know big statues made to leian shoemakers uh you know in in gratitude
so oh I hope not 500 feet tall
yes oh my gosh oh all right um well I
guess that might be it for the evening thank you all thank all the speakers Don
David Carol Scott thank you for being here and thank you everybody out there watching we really do appreciate it and
we will be back on June 14th with Dean rigas and he will be speaking about
being the astronomer out at Grand Canyon so that will be very interesting we
won't have an Al live in July uh we'll probably just get online and broadcast a little bit with Scott at Alcon so that
will be as Carol said July 17th through the 20th right Carol correct yes okay
yeah and Scott will be there doing interviews with the speakers and uh so we will be out there and I might see if
I can't join Scott a little bit to talk a little bit about what's going on very welcome so okay well thank you
all and Scott I'm going to turn it over to you to close okay all right well thanks very much uh thank you um and
thank you to all the audience that tuned in uh on this Friday it's uh here in the
United States it's uh Monday will be Memorial Day uh explore scientific will be closed so I just want to announce
that um but we'll be back on Tuesday and uh I'm pretty pretty excited uh about
the upcoming Alcon myself but you know if you've never been you got to go uh
you know uh because if it it be your first time you might see some of your friends but you're going to make a lot
more new friends so um it's really a fascinating Gathering Gathering of
astronomers and presentations and awards and all the rest of it so um and if you
can't make it you will be able to log in and watch it virtually as well uh I think there's a small fee for doing that
but uh anyhow um thanks again and you guys keep looking up good night
[Music]
[Music]
sh
[Music]
w [Music]

reviews
See all reviews