Last Thursday, I drove down to the Mount Wilson Observatory near La Cañada Flintridge to check out the telescope that astronomer Edwin Hubble used in the late 1920s to discover that the Universe is expanding. While the observatory is only less than 18 miles from where I live, it took more than an hour and a distance of 50-plus miles to reach the summit of Mount Wilson...due to the long winding road through Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. The ride was pretty fun and definitely worth it, seeing as how this is the only working observatory near Los Angeles (Griffith Park Observatory near Hollywood is more of a tourist attraction)...and the closest one after that is the Palomar Observatory (home to the 200-inch Hale Telescope) near San Diego.
Along with checking out the 100-inch Hooker Telescope (which Hubble used to make his discovery about the Universe's expansion, which he confirmed in 1929), I also took photos of the domes housing the 60-inch telescope, the two 150-foot-tall solar telescope towers and the various domes housing the CHARA (The Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy) array interferometers that began scientific use by Georgia State University in 2002. Also a sight to see is the "antenna farm"...which consists of several giant radio and TV antennas that were constructed as far back as 1947. The largest radio tower on Mount Wilson is the guyed mast that is owned by Richland Towers. It stands at 972 feet-tall.
Having visited Griffith Park Observatory (the last time I went there was in 1994), Palomar (traveled there back in '91, I believe) and now Mount Wilson, the next astronomical site I want to check out is the Mauna Kea Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii. Home to the twin Keck Telescopes, this observatory sits on Mauna Kea's summit 13,796 feet above sea level (compared to 5,710 feet for Mount Wilson). Yea, I'd either have to learn how to drive stick shift if I want to travel up Mauna Kea by myself, or take a tour bus to the observatory. I'm leaning towards taking the tour bus. That is all.
LINK: All of the photos that I took at Mount Wilson Observatory
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