Telescope Reviews: Ever Been To A Professional Observatory?

I had a similar experience about 15 years ago at the University of Wisconsin's Washburn Observatory. Built in 1881, Washburn features a 15.6 inch Clark refractor, which was the third-largest refractor in the world when it saw first light. More recently, the venerable refractor has been used for public outreach.

On one such night, I was among a small group still in the dome as the evening's session was winding down. Somebody asked the graduate student at the eyepiece about the Sun's ultimate fate and, in response, the grad student talked about M57, the Ring nebula, as a celestial object that forecasts the Sun's future. The natural follow-up was, "Can we see, M57?" and the grad student said he didn't know if it was up. Without missing a beat, I commented that it was well-placed for observing this time of year. The grad student asked me if I could find it and I said, "Sure." So, he unlocked the axes and let me have at it with the old refractor. It took me awhile to get used to the narrow field of view of the finder and the mirrored presentation at the eyepiece, but I eventually found M57.

That was my first time in the driver's seat of a Clark refractor. Several years later, my wife and I moved from Madison to Flagstaff and I soon accepted a position at Lowell Observatory on the Public Program staff. During the day, I gave tours and astronomically-themed presentations. At night, the focus was observing. One of the true joys of working at Lowell was driving the historic 24 inch Clark refractor on public observing nights. And one of the perks--the best perk--was the privilege of using the Clark, after hours. I spent many a late night exploring the night sky with that scope, and was rewarded with my best lifetime views of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.

After two years in Public Programs, I took a position as a telescope operator for Lowell astronomer, Ted Bowell. Bowell's project was surveying the night sky for asteroids and comets in near-Earth orbits. The Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS) occupied many a clear night over the next two years. I operated a 24 inch (0.6 meter) Schmidt Camera. The routine consisted of opening the dome and powering up the computers at the beginning of the night. Then, I'd take some flat fields, check the pointing accuracy and focus of the scope. When it was dark enough to observe, I'd create the first macro of the night. Basically, the macro would run the instrument through sequences of fields, imaging each field in the group, and repeating the sequence two more times until there were three images of each field.

After the third time through the sequence, software would analyze the images and present a list of "moving objects." Anything tagged as a main belt asteroid was basically ignored. Objects having motion hinting at being in near-Earth orbits were followed-up on, manually. Follow-up consisted of visually checking the images to confirm that the "object" was a real asteroid or comet. There were many false positives; bad pixel columns and bright knots in diffraction spikes, mostly. Among the tens of thousands of actual asteroids I observed during my tenure, the vast majority were known asteroids; many having been bagged by the LINEAR team to the east in New Mexico. But I did have the pleasure and privilege of discovery about a dozen NEO's and five comets. My best night was one during which I discovered a comet and got to follow that up by meeting (then) First Lady, Hillary Clinton, who just happened to be visiting Lowell the following day.

Living in Arizona, there are a number of professional observatories within a day's drive. I've visited several, including Lowell, U.S. Naval Observatory (Flagstaff Station), Kitt Peak National Observatory, MMT Observatory, Very Large Array and Palomar. For the astronomy buff, a driving tour of observatories in the Southwest U.S. can make for a great vacation.

Bill in Flag

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Grand Canyon Adventure
Lowering the Threshold

18" Obsession
4.5" Meade 4500
10x50 Swift Audubon

Cosmic Voyage