Ron’s Astrophotography

Mt. Palomar - January 2010

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Mt. Palomar Back in 2010 Carol and I took a couple of weeks and went down to Borrego Springs for a little R&R. Did some hiking and took a day trip up to Mt. Palomar

Mt. Palomar Back in 2010, Carol and I took a couple of weeks and went down to Borrego Springs for a little R&R. Did some hiking and took a day trip up to Mt. Palomar

Mt. Palomar There weren't any tours going on the day we went up there, but the dome was open and you could still wander around and be impressed

Mt. Palomar There are some additional observatories scattered around the property. We're all familiar with roll-off roofs, but these are roll-off buildings :)

Mt. Palomar Here's another.

Mt. Palomar From a distance, the dome doesn't look very big. Get up close, and wow!!!

Mt. Palomar In 1938 George Ellery Hale secured a grant, and began work on what was to be at the time the largest telescope ever built, the 200" Hale Telescope. It was the largest telescope in the world until Russia built a 236" telescope. Here's an interesting article on the history of George Hale and the Palomar Observatory History of George Hale and Mt. Palomar Observatory

Mt. Palomar The observatory is situated at 5,600' and was built on the only land that Hale could find that fit his observing requirements.

Mt. Palomar The dome itself is 137' in diameter and 135' tall. Work on the mirror had to be suspended for three years due to WW II. The cooks and undergraduate students were enlisted to help pour the concrete. Mt. Palomar is now owned and operated by Caltech in Pasadena

Mt. Palomar You can take a self-guided tour on days when there are no regular tours. Inside the dome there is a viewing gallery from which you can see all of the equipment along with the telescope

Mt. Palomar The gondola. Astronomers used to sit in here for hours on end with their eye to the eyepiece keeping the crosshairs on their target in order to get good round stars in their images. It would be seriously cold at night so they would bundle up in their cold weather suits with a thermos of hot coffee. Imaging back then was done on photographic plates

Mt. Palomar The telescope is on a fork mount with a horseshoe bearing. The telescope weighs 530 tons

Mt. Palomar Your basic telescope parts.

Mt. Palomar Pyrex was commissioned to build the mirror. They started out with two 40,000 lb. pieces of glass. One was ruined by a power failure during the cooling process and it cracked

Mt. Palomar Another picture of the gondola

Mt. Palomar Just a couple of the wheels that the dome sits on as it rotates

Mt. Palomar That's me in the visitor's gallery.

Mt. Palomar A bust of George Hale along with a plaque sits in the observatory entryway

Mt. Palomar Carol, as we're getting ready to head over to Julian for some lunch

Mt. Palomar A lot of very important people have worked here: Fritz Zwicky, Edwin Hubble, Walter Baade, and Allan Sandage just to name a few. Albert Einstein came out for the opening dedication in 1948 but was never associated with the project other than that visit