There are some places and things which define a generation, time, or a culture.
Mount Palomar is one of those places, and one of the icons of the the 50's and 60's which impacted on a whole generation. As the Iron Horse the technology which enabled the development of the West in the 19th C, so Astronomy was the technology which fed the romantic fires of the frontiers of Space and our drive towards digital technologies. In the early part of the century new telescopes enabled scientists to look further and further into the universe, boldly laying down theories on top of new observations, which promoted more new theories which need to be verified by observation. The race was to build the biggest and best telescopes to attract the brightest intellects. At the top of this tree was Edwin Hubble, it was he that unified the observations of galaxies to bring order to the stars.
This early space race fed the imagination and gave the need to go into space some credibility, which crystallised in the development of NASA and the race for the Moon.
At the heart of this technology was the 200 inch Hale Telescope at Mount Palomar. If an astronomy story was published, if space pictures were needed they the iconic building which housed the Hale Telescope was rolled out. It was the 1950's quintessential image of all things spacewards. Though it was planned and paid for from 1928 it was not completed and operational until 1949. It was such a leap in technology that nothing better could be made until the Hubble Telescope was put into orbit in 1990, even now with advances in technology the Hale telescope is still at the forefront of Astronomy.
So Mount Palomar to me has been synonymous with pure science, which I first came into contact with probably as a 7 or 8 year old, and new I would never get to see.
Well today we did see it. We drove the 45 miles up into the mountains and took a good look at it and around it. We were not there very long, but what we did see fulfilled my expectations. Although there is no tour on weekdays we were allowed access to the building and because sally is disabled we had to enter using the service elevator, which enabled us to not only see the huge telescope but to get up close to it and marvel at its size and engineering. We had to wait outside for the man to escort us, he was supposed to arrive at 1.00, but was a few minutes late. When he arrived he apologized and asked if we had been waiting long. I said "About 55 years, since I was about seven".
The rest is boring statistics.
The telescope is like a giant shaving mirror. It is a piece of pyrex 200 inches across, that's nearly 17 feet and 20 tons, perfectly ground (it took eleven years to complete). Mounted on a huge structure which is so perfectly balanced and well lubricated that it can be moved by a single person. Unlike a shaving mirror the top surface is silvered, rather than the back surface, so it must be resurfaced every few years, so the whole mirror can be removed and placed in a giant vacuum tank which is used to diffuse Aluminium on to its surface.
Although the telescope was put in place 60 years ago new technology means that results are constantly improving. The biggest advance has been Adaptive Optics. A wobbly mirror, whose shape is controlled by computer, is placed in the light path. A laser reference system determines the distortion due to the atmosphere and the computer then flexes the wobbly mirror to neutralise the atmospheric distortion, amazing. It is no longer the largest telescope, as new technology will dwarf this mirror, ESO, European Southern Observatory is now building the E-ELT, a 39 metre diameter mirror with 948 sq m of collecting surface, compared to the Hale's 20 Sq m. Nice web page here, do miss the nice video
So having now achieved a boyhood dream Sally and I returned to our campground, a momentous day for me at least.
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