Waiting for our tour bus.
Rich and Colleen arranged a tour to Mt. Wilson for Monday. The notable Hubbell
connection there is Edwin Hubble (something like a 7th cousin to Anne). The tour
was interesting on its own merits, though.
Waiting for our tour bus.
Rich and Colleen got up extra early to pick up Subway sandwich boxes for our
picnic lunch.
Looking up at the Queen Mary while waiting.
Noting the need for restoration. I failed to get a picture, but had noted that
on the Promenade Deck, there were places between the floor and the side of the ship
where sunlight was visible.
Mother and Aunt Mary
Colleen had attained permission for one car to drive up the road closer to
the museum on Mt. Wilson. This was to get mobility-impaired individuals
up the hill. The rest of us would have to hike up from the parking lot.
So Margie would drive the Suburban and take Aunt Mary, Paul, and Mother.
A bit of Pokemon hunting.
after a 2-hour trip all the way across Los Angeles, and up the mountain, we arrived.
Ty and Rhys
Meanwhile, back on the 710, Margie was dealing with car failure in the Suburban.
She'd been in the carpool lane, so they were stuck on the median. Fortunately,
help in the form of AAA and the police was at hand. The first thing to do was
to get them off the median. A towtruck simply tilted the car up, occupants still
in their seatbelts. 5 police cars, one for each lane, stopped traffic on the
freeway, and the towtruck pulled them over to the other side.
Then the responders transferred Aunt Mary and the rest to another vehicle for
transport. They all then went with the Suburban to a repair shop and waited
while the problem was diagnosed and fixed. It turned out to be a damaged
ignition wire. Once back on the road, Margie wisely decided to take her
carload straight back to the Queen Mary. What an adventure!
Back on Mt. Wilson, we picnicked on our box lunches, and then met the docents
who would lead us in 3 groups.
A view of the old road that was used to haul all the building materials and supplies
in when the observatory was first under construction in 1904.
I like the terrain at this elevation (5700').
Miranda and Rhys
The solar telescope.
Vintage equipment
Inside the solar observatory.
today's sun spots
The solar observer took time to show us how he records each day's sun spots, and
discussed the variance in them over time, and how the solar observatory works.
These recordings have been done each day since 1917.
On the paper, you can see today's sun spot images. The tiger eye marble is scaled
to the size of Jupiter relative to the sun spots. The metal ball bearing is
earth-size. The card shows another sun spot image -- much much larger than
the current ones.
And then a ladybug landed on the paper -- not sure what scaled object she represents.
more vintage equipment - possibly still in use.
The trap door and stairs leading down to the basement.
Photo on the wall featured Edwin Hubble, and other notables such as Einstein.
Edwin Hubble had one of the lockers for when he was here working.
This is inside the building for the 60" telescope.
This is part of the CHARA array, a interferometer formed by six 1-meter
telescopes.
In order to gather a wider higher-resolution image, light from several towers is
combined together to form one clearer image. The light is piped in vacuum tubes
from outlying towers and precisely put together.
Here are some of the pipes conveying the light.
100" telescope.
Undeveloped pad - for alien spacecraft??
Apparently the atmospheric conditions on Mt. Wilson are particularly stable,
vital to the proper operation of the observatory.
a bit of wildlife.
The ride back down the hill. Thankfully, our bus driver was very cautious.
The younger set migrated to the back of the bus.
Not shown -- we stopped on the way back at In-N-Out Burger for dinner.