On October 30th at 11:00 AM
The SCCAVS Sponsored:
The tour was
preceded by a cold, windy and stormy night. Twenty-three members and
friends of the SCCAVS braved the elements and a fire-necessitated detour to
tour the Mount Wilson Observatory. Our guides from the Mount Wilson
Observatory Association, Gale Gant and Michael Rudy began with a history lesson
including a stop at the mountain-top museum. We learned of Andrew Carnegie
and George Ellery Hale, the former who provided money and the latter who
provided the vision to construct telescopes of unprecedented size and
capability. The projected was started in 1904, and within 4 years, two of
the 3 Solar telescopes were finished as well as the 60
inch observatory. We were amazed at how an instrument of such magnitude
and Swiss clock precision could be constructed in the mountain wilderness.
Seven hundred tons of material and equipment had to be hauled up the dirt Mount
Wilson Toll Road – quite a feat at the time. In the observatory we passed
an old set of lockers with names of astronomers who frequented this place.
Whose name should we see front and center but Edwin Hubble's, hired by
Hale in 1919. Hubble using the 60 inch and 100 inch telescopes that would
later show the universe was expanding.
Next stop
was the 100 inch telescope. It was larger and more powerful in every respect than
the 60 inch telescope. The structure of the telescope and its mirror were
massive. We were in awe of the knife switches, antique motors, and
mechanisms used to move this telescope and open the shutter. We were
shown the old control console and a chair on an elevated platform to bring
operators in proximity to the eye piece. A large disc type structure was
actually a camera that operators would use over a period of as much as 2 days
to gather light from distance galaxies. Continual compensation needed to
be made for the earth's movement. At ground level of this observatory was a
coating room. Here a large diffusion-pumped chamber from the 1930s is used to
coat all the mirrors on the mountain with a highly reflective aluminum coating.
This process is repeated every 2-3 years. The tour ended with a
visit to the Chara Array which combines light from six one-meter mirror
telescopes positioned in a "Y" pattern encompassed by a 1,086 foot
circle. Light from the six telescopes are combined to create images as if
from a quarter mile diameter single telescope mirror.
All in all,
it was a fascinating day. We gathered at the Cosmic
cafe to snap a group photo and enjoy a lunch with a view from on high.
Then it was time to head back to Planet Earth.
150-foot Solar
Tower Telescope 60 inch
Telescope
Entering the
dome housing the 100 inch Telescope
