Mt. Wilson Observatory
On Wednesday, April 23 I sat near 6,000 ft attempting to get as close to the sky and distance ourselves as far from the LA light pollution that sat beneath us. What I am talking about is our class trip to the Mt. Wilson Observatory to experience the night skies and experiment with astrophotography. We packed our photo gear, bundled up warm, and tossed in a relaxing chair and heading up the the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena. We started out our adventure with a tour o the Mt. Wilson Observatory. Mt Wilson is most famous for its two telescopes the 100 inch and the 60inch telescope that we spend our night inside. The 100inch Hooker telescope was the largest in the world in the early 1900’s. It was built in 1917 and stayed on top of the rankings until 1948 when a 200inch telescope was developed. As I mentioned we spent our night 6,000 ft. above Los Angeles driving slow up a windy road to reach the observatory. Back in the early 1990’s how do you imagine these giant 60 and 100 inch telescopes were transported up. I was shocked when our host explained that that were brought up in separate piece back mule trucks and then reassembled at the top. One telescope that might not be as large of a dome as the 100inch Hooker but definitely stands out is the tower telescope that sits above the trees for image making reasons. What I found most interesting was not just that it stood above the trees but also 80ft. below the ground where the image making took place.
We spent the night not only searching the night skies but documenting them as well. Lia Halloran our professors who works in long exposure photography spend a few days on astro photography lectures and equipment prep. I spent the night wondering back and forth from capturing images through the 60 inch telescope and recording the light of stars from lightyears away. Attached below is some of my images.
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