The Mount Wilson Observatory |
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This dusk view looking northeast from the Pavilion parking lot area shows a small portion of the 100 inch dome and the three historic solar telescopes atop the frontal ridge on Mount Wilson. From left to right are the 100 inch dome, 150 foot solar tower, 60 foot solar tower and the structure housing a portion of the Snow horizontal solar telescope. |
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The Historic 6" Dome |
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The Dome in Winter |
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Here's a photo of me in the 16 inch dome. The Meade 16 LX200 telescope is controlled using a desktop computer running TheSky software. Photo courtesy of Gale Gant |
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Following is a short tour of the 16 inch telescope program |
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Tom Meneghini and Darrel Moon - Senior Operators and Tom and Darrel have unselfishly volunteered many hours of their time to the Mount Wilson 16" program. They have both contributed significantly to the success of the annual CUREA (Consortium for Undergraduate Research and Education in Astronomy) program held at the Observatory, facilitating the planned nightly spectroscopic and photometric activities. In addition to their involvement in the 16" program, they are both certified operators on the venerable and historic Mount Wilson 60" reflecting telescope. It is volunteers like these that make Mount Wilson such a special place. |
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Tom Mason |
George Cunning and Tom Drouet 16" certified operators |
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Pictured left to right are Matt Ota, Dave Jurasevich, Darrel Moon, Nora DeMuth and Arbi Karapetien. This photo was taken the night that Matt, Nora and Arbi passed their testing and became certified operators in the 16" program. Photo courtesy of Arbi Karapetien |
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Certified 16" operators for whom I do not have photos include Ross Bowman, William Daffer, Gale Gant, Omar Garza, Colin Leis, Bill Ramsey, Perry Rose, Larry Scherr, Diana Shepherd and Mike Simmons |
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The Historic 10" Cooke Dome |
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Another venue option at Mount Wilson is the historic 10" Cooke Dome. This dome is located on the steep ridge heading south to
the
Monastery, Late at night when imaging from this site I sometimes feel I can sense Barnard just down the ridge happily tending to his equipment,
passing |
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60" Telescope |
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The Mount Wilson 60" reflector was commissioned in 1908, surpassing the 40" Yerkes refractor and becoming the largest telescope in the world at that time. It remained the largest telescope until it was surpassed by the Mount Wilson 100" reflector in 1917. With this telescope the famed astronomer Harlow Shapley firmly located our place within the Milky Way galaxy, relegating us to a position of relative unimportance part way out on one spiral arm of our island universe. Used primarily nowadays for visual observing in its f/16 Bent Cassegrain configuration, this finely made instrument offers incredible views of the heavens. |
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I'm lucky to be an operator on the 60" telescope and have the chance to observe with this wonderful machine. Views of the planets, moon, double stars and deep sky objects such as planetary and diffuse nebulae are breathtaking when seen through this telescope. Observing distinct, individual globular clusters in M31 and M33, resolving fine detail in Jupiter's cloud bands, or seeing the ultra-fine structure of planetary nebulae is all possible and relatively easy on nights of good seeing. Much of the technology in the dome is 1907 vintage, however the control console pictured at left is a 1950's vintage upgrade. It's basically a digital setting circle scheme, with the operator matching RA and Dec coordinates of a known object with the encoder display on the adjacent CRT monitor. Plans are currently underway to fully upgrade this scope with modern drive motors and a computer Go-To control system. |
Mount Wilson 60" Reflector Photo courtesy of Gale Gant |
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