| Sunday, September 25, 2005 |
20:58 - Night on Mt. Hamilton
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Last night, through some kind of string-pulling on the part of a friend of mine, a group of us went up to Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton for a seven-hour tour of the facility, including two of the ten or so observatory domes scattered across the ridge at the top of the mountain.
Here's the observatory, the face that looks out over the bay and can be seen from anywhere in Silicon Valley:
And here's the view from there after the sun has gone down:
First we toured the 120-inch reflector, the big dome on the second peak with the late-50s architectural elements like flat metal banisters on cherrywood-paneled staircases in the foyer. Inside is this monster:
Then, once the sun had gone down, we went to the large dome in the main observatory building, the 60-foot-long 36-inch refractor that had been completed in 1887.
Almost 120 years old and still in nightly use. Most of the equipment and furnishings, including the guard rails on the catwalk around the dome and the spiral staircase up to it, are original. So is that gorgeous hardwood floor down there, which is on a hydraulic lift so it rises and descends to give the astronomer access at any height throughout the dome to the end of the telescope. All the hardwood planks are bent into that circular design and lacquered over; when the floor moves up or down, it's with eerie smoothness and quiet.
This is pure Vernian steam-punk chic right here: look at the huge dials on the axial mounts there. The astronomer would have had to call out coordinates to his assistant perched up on the central pier, and he'd turn those big ship's wheels to aim the telescope. "Bring it about to seventeen hours right ascension, Mr. Hawkins!"
Nowadays, the astronomer moves the telescope by hand, using the leverage available at the end and the counterweights at the middle; if you get it going up and away, an astronomer without a lot of body weight gets taken for a ride.
And under the hydraulics in the central pier is where the crazy philanthropist who endowed the place is buried:
We spent until midnight aiming the scope at cool stuff in the sky, ending with a view of the rising Mars.
There aren't many cooler ways for a geek to spend a Saturday night.
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Brian Tiemann
