Comments on: Touching Hubble’s history

By: Paul M.

Paul M. — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:01:45 +0000

On my first ever trip to the US I had the best part of a day to kill to try and avoid jet lag… so what to do – drive up Mt Wilson. That winding road was an interesting experience for one not used to driving on the wrong side of the road, especially after just getting off a long flight. Worth it though, the sense of coolness was much as you describe – thanks for the words.

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:32:05 +0000

One problem that observatories have encountered, Max, is with the National Register of Historic Places. You’d think that getting on the Register would do the trick, but they prevent modifications of the telescope, like, say, putting a spectrometer on the scope, or upgrading the tailpiece. Clearly not in the observatory’s best interests.

If such an EPO Consortium could be founded (I hereby nominate you & Phil to the advisory board) perhaps such an august (september?) organization could inveigh on the Register’s sensibilities to allow observatories to be on the list without being hamstrung…

By: Max

Max — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:39:33 +0000

Fantastic account, Phil — thank you. I’m also an astronomer and while at a DPS conference in Pasadena a few years ago, I just had to sneak away and make a pilgrimage up to Mt. Wilson. I’ve been working on HST for 18 years, so it was a profoundly satisfying experience for me to walk around the spot where Edwin Hubble, our namesake, changed the world.

I have also visited the even-older Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and I’ve been involved in their educational outreach efforts. It is another inspiring place to visit, and I encourage you to make that trek if you haven’t already.

I think you would be as mortified as me (and many other astronomers) if any of these cultural icons were ever bulldozed or otherwise made inaccessible. I wonder if Yerkes, Lick, Mt. Wilson, and other historic observatories could form an educational outreach consortium that would help ensure each others future (rather than each of them fending off developers, etc, for themselves)?

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:57:34 +0000

I think I over parenthesized that comment…
Oh well…

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:55:48 +0000

Oh yeah, by the way, at tonight’s CAS meeting at McCormick Observatory one of the door prizes that I handed out was a copy of “Death From The Skies”. I gave one away last month too.

Our speaker was Dr. Mark Whittle (Phil, he sends his fond regards!) who explained that the WMAP image of the CMB (which is is basically a microscopic (you read that right: MICROscopic) view of the universe’s quantum state graininess (at the beginning of the inflationary period) when it was the size of a bacterium! So the 27 Billion Light Year wide CMB (13.5 billion LY to the left & 13.5 billion LY to the right = 27 billion LY diameter) is an imprint of a bacterium sized universe!

And all us BA Blogees where right there, melted into pure energy and stuff…

Dr. Whittle got a long ovation at the end of his talk.

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:42:24 +0000

Naomi:
You should come east to Charlottesville, Va sometime and touch that 26″ Clark at UVa that I referred to above. One of my favorite things to do is point it by hand at Jupiter or Saturn and set it up. The tactile experience is priceless. It just doesn’t compare to today’s go-to scopes. Very satisfying. If you’re an astronomer you can contact us at CAS and maybe we can even arrange a personal tour.

The telescope is open to the public on the 1st & 3rd Fridays of each month for “Public Night” observing. On the 2nd & 4th Fridays we at CAS operate the scope for “Group Night” where Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, school groups and such can observe through the scope.

We do a PowerPoint presentation in the attached classroom and the kids can touch a fragment of the Barringer Meteor Crater meteorite. If it’s clear the dome is opened up and we observer what targets of opportunity present themselves. If it’s cloudy the scope itself is rather extremely cool.

By: T.E.L.

T.E.L. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:59:41 +0000

Johnny,

I guy I used to work with was once called to NASA on an engineering issue. While at the VAB he was invited up into the service scaffolds of the space shuttle Challenger. His host encouraged him to go ahead and touch the tiles with his bare hands, which he did with some enthusiasm. The Challenger was at that time being prepped for its last flight. He touched the shuttle, and it blew up. Coincidence? YOU DECIDE.