400 Years of the Telescope

…And so our morning began…. with one dying Chevy pickup that had been giving us trouble all week, but we never imagined that it would completely stall about 10 times, the final three less than 2 kilometers from the airport. We left our hotel, Casa de Don Pedro, at 6am this morning on an hour and a half trek to the Calama airport. In reality, our travels took us about 2 and a half hours. We pulled in just in time for Kris to give the Avis representatives the update on the truck’s poor health.

Thus our day HAD to improve.

The theory was a valid one as we boarded our flight on time, arrived in Antofagasta on time to pick up our rental car. Initially we were booked for a full-size van, but we decided (after discovering that the spare tire was lacking sufficient air) to take a truck instead…another Red Truck. It must be our poor luck with Chilean Red Trucks because as we pulled out of the parking lot with our rental, the Dollar Rental Car representative warned us that the alarm system was a bit screwy. We thought little of the comment until later in the day when, without proper warning, and every time someone opened a door, the alarm would sound. We tried tirelessly to locate the off-button for the system, but to no avail. To this hour, our loco red truck sounds alarms every time someone opens a door, no matter what buttons we press.

We arrived at the Paranal Observatory summit around 2pm where we were greeted by our guide for the next two days. We were told that we would have a chance to unpack our things and have a bite to eat before we got to shoot any footage. This was a pleasant treat for the crew who had eaten airport breakfast consisting of Nescafe coffee and ham, egg and cheese sandwiches and a bag of Cheetos between them for the whole day thus far. As the crew walked into the Paranal hotel atrium, they were blown away by the change in environment from the dry Atacama Desert outside. The atrium was filled with exotic plants, adding to a tropical humidity that the crew was thankful for after being dried out by desert living over the last week.

The crew headed up the mountain after a filling cafeteria-style lunch. The summit houses the four VLT telescopes, each with an 8-meter diameter, which, when their data is combined, creates the largest telescope on earth. The crew was treated to an outdoor interview scheduled for them with the Deputy Director of Paranal, Ricardo.

The crew was nearly blown away atop the summit during the interview and decided to do their next interview with one of the VLT’s astronomers inside the first of the four domes. They set up the cameras side-by–side atop one of the elevated platforms in the dome, the telescope directly behind the interviewee, Christophe.

Mid-interview, the crew was alerted to the fact that sunset was about to occur and that the dome would be opening. The crew quickly finished the interview and got set-up for the sunset, Anita Berkow, Kris Koenig and Krista Shelby found a nice spot outside the dome (in the wind), while Scott Stender stayed inside and shot the rotating dome and the opening of the dome’s slit. A few minutes after sunset, the crew all re-convened outside where Scott got some last-minute shots of the domes illuminated by the moon. He even slowed down the shutter speed to increase the illumination of the stars in the background of the shot – how ingenious! While Scott got these last-minute shots and the girls repacked the equipment, Kris went to another part of the summit to set up his Canon still camera to capture this unique time-lapse photography opportunity – full moon, four domes, clear skies – it was a beautiful night. We look forward to seeing what the camera yielded. In the meantime, please check out last Tuesday’s blog where we reposted a working copy of our first time-lapse capture of this trip. Enjoy!

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 05:26 AM | Permalink

The crew agreed Sunday night to make Monday morning one of slow beginnings. We made sure our plans began after 10am, letting us all sleep in for an extra two hours from what we were used to. We once again convened in the hotel lobby at 10am and began the trek back up to ALMA base camp at 10,000 feet. As soon as we drove out of the front driveway of the hotel, we remembered that we were down diesel gasoline and that we needed to refill or we would not be able to return from the mountain later in the afternoon. William Garnier, the ALMA PIO and our faithful guide for the last two days, knew exactly where to find the small, tucked-away resources of diesel that we needed to get our day started on the right foot (or wheel in this case).

Once on the road, we tried our best to spot llamas along the road. You see, we have been in Chile for 7 days now and we have not seen a single llama aside from the souvenirs and sweaters featuring the fuzzy little creatures. Luckily, a few of us were able to spot one among a pack of sheep and goats – apparently around Chile, llamas are often used much like sheep dogs.

We reached 10,000 feet base camp around 11am and got geared up for a second round of interview questions with Dr. Catherine Cesarsky, this time in front of some of the telescopes that will be placed at 16,000 feet at ALMA. Much like our visits to some of the Observatories that we visit, we were given hardhats to wear for our visit. We were able to roam the construction camp where, since it was Monday morning, we were greeted by many of the workers who were busy getting the ALMA headquarters built. We drove down to the North American antenna-construction site from which we planned to shoot our interview and get some additional footage of the other antennae that had arrived to the site. As soon as we arrived, we were surprised to find ourselves chatting with the American workers who were working-away on the first antenna to arrive. The crew there was gracious enough to give us some “quiet” time to film our interview with Dr. Cesarsky and we were able to film the workers working on some technical components of the antenna.

After our interview with Dr. Cesarsky and our final shots of the mountain, we descended from ALMA for the last time on this trip. We made our way back to San Pedro de Atacama where we said our goodbyes to William and had our final meal with Catherine. We found a quaint little restaurant in town to share a meal and some more life experiences with our interviewee. We were all so very sad to say goodbye to her when she had to leave us at 4pm to catch a flight later in the evening back to Santiago and eventually back to Europe. We had an amazing time getting to know her on both a professional and personal level during the past three days and we cannot wait to see her again.

The crew now prepares for their travel to Paranal tomorrow. They will depart from San Pedro de Atacama early tomorrow morning, bound for Calama where they will fly to Antofogasta and then drive once more into the Atacama Desert to Paranal. Wish them luck as they prepare for another long day of travel by brushing the dirt off their luggage and (hopefully) successfully re-pack their things, including their newly purchased souvenirs.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 05:43 PM | Permalink

The trek to the top of the mountain began bright and early for the crew. They met up with Dr. Catherine Cesarsky and PIO William Garnier at 8am to begin the drive up to ALMA base camp and eventually up to the location of ALMA and APEX. At ALMA base camp at 8,000 feet, the crew got their pre-mountain climb checkup by the paramedics on the mountain and all checked out wonderfully. The medic even commented that Scott Stender had the heart rate and blood pressure of a young man, something he took much joy in on his 49th Birthday!!.

The crew decided to do their interview with Dr. Cesarsky at the APEX antenna and they set up despite the harsh wind and cold that the crew was not yet used to. They used the doors of the APEX observing building to block some of the wind to aid in the audio recording and to cut down on how much the cameras shook. The interview went fantastically and the crew managed the 20-minute interview at 16,000 feet without getting altitude sickness. Immediately after the interview, they snuck indoors, where the air was pressurized to check their equipment and get some oxygen before going out again.

Next, the crew climbed one of the closest hills to APEX to get a great shot of the surrounding landscape of the location of ALMA. The broad landscape will one day house at least 66 antennas and up to 80 of them with ALMA's cooperation with ESO (European Southern Observatory), the United States and Japan. Already, two of the Japanese antennas have arrived and are being assembled and fine-tuned down at ALMA base camp.

After the 2 hours at 16,000 feet, the crew was ready to descend the mountain and get some food for lunch. Thanks to ALMA, the crew was well fed down at basecamp before heading down to San Pedro once again; this time to visit the APEX headquarters to check out the view of the mountains we had just descended from.

The evening plans were debated a few times (Kris Koenig, the producer, wanting to return to 16,000 feet and the rest of the crew and our interviewee wanting to take the rest of the evening to get some b-roll off the mountain) and the crew eventually decided to stay off the mountain for the night and shoot the sunset from a lake nearby. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous! It cast a dark pink glow on the mountains nearby and gave the entire valley a golden glow for a good half hour before the darkness descended. The crew was happy to have experienced this nighttime treat in San Pedro de Atacama.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 06:21 AM | Permalink

This whirlwind of a day took us from developing city to developing city in Chile. We said our goodbyes to Antofogasta after our one night stay on the beach before boarding our 40 minute flight east to Calama. Calama is near the Bolivian border and in the middle of the Atacama Desert; the most dry and dead place on earth. No wonder they make so many 4 wheel drive car commercials and test the Mars Rover there – there’s barely any living organisms on the two hour drive through the Calama desert towards San Pedro De Atacama. Our bright red rental truck was just large enough to pack the crew and the equipment. We kept an eye on the luggage placed on the top of the pile in the back of the truck just in case we hit any potholes or rocks on the way to San Pedro de Atacama. But luckily, the crew and the luggage didn’t hit any obstacles on the road and everyone got to San Pedro safe and sound.

Once in the city, we roamed the city looking for our hotel that ended up being down a series of winding streets, past the markets and restaurants of the major metropolitan part of the city. We dropped off our gear and made sure everything was put on a charger to get ready for the next day’s interview with Dr. Catherine Cesarsky before we entered the city to get our first taste (literally and figuratively) of San Pedro.

We spend a good part of an hour scouting out all of the food establishments, looking for something that would calm all of our grumbling stomachs. We finally settled on a restaurant whose name we could not pronounce which included an open, but covered deck to eat on and an outdoor patio with trees and umbrella-covered tables. We all agreed that this was a very delicious meal.

After lunch, we all got out our pesos and prepared to shop. We entered the city’s market area and perused the booths lined with small gifts and knick-knacks for our family and friends. We had fun trying on hats and gloves and marveling at the variety of color on the garments.

We got one more quick snack before heading back to the hotel where we all re-gathered ourselves and prepared for a late dinner. We planned to meet up around 8pm, giving us all some time to take a siesta, check e-mails and pack our gear for morning before dinner and bed. Around 7pm, the phone in Anita Berkow and Krista Shelby’s room rang, alerting them that Dr. Cesarsky and Dr. William Garnier had just arrived and that they were waiting for them at the front desk of the hotel. After a quick discussion of the following morning’s “gameplan”, the crew and Dr. Cesarsky had a wonderful dinner back in the city where they got a chance to get to know each other on more than just a professional-to-professional level. We shared stories and laughs and a wonderful evening was had all around – a magnificent end to a very long day.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 04:41 AM | Permalink

Kris Koenig, our producer, was the first member of the production team awake and moving this morning. He awoke before 2am to replace the camera batteries in his Canon still photography camera atop the Las Campanas summit. His camera was capturing images of the night sky in a time-lapse sequence, taking pictures every 15 seconds to be later compiled into a single video file for our records. The night skies over Las Campanas were unusually cloudy during our night there, which allowed us to get some spectacular footage for our segment of the telescope documentary explaining atmosphere disturbances that affect telescope observing.

The rest of the team woke up between 7 and 8am, each making their way slowly towards the Las Campanas Lodge for their morning breakfast intake that included the amazing culinary artworks of the chefs at the site. Most everyone helped himself or herself to a Las Campanas omelet that had meats, cheeses, avocado and onion rolled up into a covering of egg. This with a nice warm cup of freshly brewed coffee was all that them team needed to get their engines running for the day.

Before departing from the summit, on their way back to La Serena for their evening flight, them team said their shot good-byes to the engineering and observer support staff of the summit and made sure they got some more b-roll of the signs leading up to the summit’s 8,000 feet peak. They also made sure to get some shots of the close ESO summit, La Silla that they were not able to visit due to time constraints on this trip to Chile.

The team made their way along the coastline from Las Campanas to La Serena, stopping along the way to check out some of the coastline land properties for sale. The crew marveled at the amazing views of the coastline and the Pacific Ocean from the Cliffside property currently available to purchase. They spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the CTIO and Las Campanas headquarters in La Serena and visiting the local marketplaces getting last-minute gifts for family and friends back home.

Now they sit in the La Serena Airport, waiting for their 8pm flight to Antofogasta where they spend one evening enjoying the northern Chile culture before their short flight to Calama the next morning.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 08:23 PM | Permalink

We awoke bright and early atop Cerra Tololo for the last time this morning. Kris Koenig collected his Canon camera that spent the night taking time-lapse shots of Cerra Pinchon, we got ourselves caffeinated at the dining hall, said our quick goodbyes to the staff and crew at Cerra Tololo, and headed back down the mountain, destined for Las Campanas. We were once again stuffed into the Toyota Pickup we rented from Avis and headed north along the 41 freeway. We passed the beautiful shore-front property above La Serena on our way to Las Campanas, a place where Kris swears he will live one day.

We reached Las Campanas around lunchtime, which gave us enough time to greet our welcoming crew and get settled into our rooms that had been reserved for us for the night. We joined the summit's Observer support crew, engineering staff and a few of the visiting astronomers from MIT and Michigan State while we dined on the summit's exquisite cuisine - kudos to the chefs! After lunch, we were off to work. We visited the Twin Magellan Telescopes first. We were invited to spend the afternoon in the Clay telescope dome where we were able to ask the engineering staff to rotate the dome and the telescope while we got some amazing footage of the telescope. The 6.5-meter mirror was a beautiful sight when it could be tilted down towards us watching from below. It was nearly close enough to touch! Scott Stender, our Director of Photography, was allowed to sit on a landing on the rotating part of the dome. This angle allowed him to get some close shots of the primary mirror as well as rotate with the dome to maximize the amount of movement we could catch on camera.

During our visit to the Clay telescope, a doctor from the University of Arizona in Tucson was in the process of making some technical changes to the fiber optics systems used in conjunction with the telescope. He took us step-by-step through the process of changing the lenses and fiber-optic cables on the system.

The evening concluded with another night of beautiful sunset shots. Scott was able to resume his position on the dome's rotating landing, getting a great view of the opening of the dome at sunset from the interior. Meanwhile, Anita Berkow and Krista Shelby were positioned outside the Magellan Domes to get a shot of the golden and orange lights cast on the telescope domes. As the wind picked up and the sun went down, leaving the girls cold, they got some great shots of the Magellan Telescopes as well as the DuPont telescope below in the coral and deep orange-red tones right before sundown. All-in-all the crew maximized the amount of shots that could be taken at sunset by splitting the crew and getting more variety of shots. They look forward to spending most of the morning tomorrow shooting more exterior shots of the summit before heading back down the mountain towards La Serena once more. Buenas Noches blog readers, join us again tomorrow!

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 08:25 PM | Permalink

Picking up where we left off last night at the domes, we made arrangements with our friend Ricardo to get someone to escort us through some of the smaller domes on Cerra Tololo. This morning, we traveled back up to meet with Ricardo at the 4-meter scope to do some final shots from within the facility. In particular, we wanted to catch some of the action that takes place in the control room during the day prior to the night’s observation time. Again, Ricardo was an amazing help, giving us a first-hand look at how crises are averted within the world of Observer Support. After our visit with Ricardo, he hooked us up with his friend Arturo at the 60-inch telescope next-door to the 4-meter scope and we were greeted with the same hospitality at the 60-inch facility as at the 4-meter telescope. We climbed to great heights (about 20 feet) within the dome in search of the perfect shot, making our tripod look like an acrobat, hanging from odd angles from the high beams of the dome. We got some great perspective shots from the high points of the dome, shooting out through the opening in the dome while the telescope rotated. From below, Anita Berkow captured Arturo working at the control station within the dome, controlling the buttons that rotate the dome and telescope as well as recalling positions of the telescope at critical points within the shoot. We worked with Arturo to record the position of the dome and the telescope for a shoot later in the evening. We wanted to make sure that we could get a beautiful sunset shot from the high angle inside the dome, looking out towards the 4-meter telescope. Before leaving the dome for dinner, we got our existing light kit hooked up inside the dome to maximize the amount of light on the scope for our sunset shot. Using gaffer tape and some spare bars of steel from inside the dome, we were able to create stands for our lights to prop them at appropriate heights to catch the critical parts of the telescope with the warm lights.

We came down from the summit to the dining hall again just in time to catch one of the Observer Support crew from Gemini South. Marie Claire was extremely helpful and open to the idea of us coming up to Cerra Pinchon to film the opening of the Gemini Dome for sunset. In this case, our crew would be split for the evening, Scott Stender and Krista Shelby at the 60-inch while Anita Berkow and Kris Koenig went up to the other mountain to see Gemini’s opening. Krista and Scott were left at the dining hall around 5:15pm while Kris and Anita headed up the mountain to set up their perfect shot for the evening.

The domes opened simultaneously around 6:30pm and both mountains were illuminated by golden and coral tones as the sun made its descent below the horizon. Scott was perched inside the 60-inch telescope taking a shot of the glow on the 4-meter telescope while Krista was on the upper deck outside the same facility, shooting the surrounding telescopes and the movement of the 60-meter’s dome. Meanwhile, Anita and Kris were over on Cerra Pinchon shooting the exterior of Gemini South. They were also able to get inside the control room where the nightly astronomer, Etienne, was working. We look forward to seeing the shots up on the editing room monitor when we return to the office next week. Join us again tomorrow when we trek off to Las Campanas!

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 05:44 PM | Permalink

Day one at CTIO and we hit the road running, making connections with the telescope operators of many of the mountain’s telescope facilities. We spent a good part of the morning at the 4-meter telescope at the top of Cerro Tololo, getting some good footage of telescope movement. Thanks to the operator, Ricardo, we were able to get into the control room and have complete control over the movement of the telescope and the dome. We used both of the HD cameras to maximize the time that we were given inside of the telescope, shooting from both sides of the telescope as it tilted and rotated. Scott was also given the opportunity to stand on the moving platform that moves with the dome, giving him a great pan shot around the outside of the telescope. The last shot of the morning before breaking for lunch was a dual indoor and outdoor shot of the opening of the dome. Scott went downstairs to the outside of the dome while we watched from the outdoor catwalk around the upper part of the facility. Standing about 75 feet off the ground, we took in the breathtaking view of the Chilean Andes.

Lunch was an unusual treat for both the staff and administration of Cerro Tololo and the production crew. We walked into the mess hall to see a long table set with formal place settings for 15 people. Outside, one of the chefs was cooking up steaks, sausages, ribs and seafood empanadas (mmmmm!). We could not resist sitting outside, enjoying the view from the deck towards the Andes while breathing in the aromatic scents of the barbecue. Lunch was a delightful affair, enjoying the company of the staff of the mountain on the Chilean Independence Day. The holiday celebrates Chile’s independence from Spain in 1810. Wine and traditional foods of the country were served, giving us a cultural education beyond our travels to the telescopes.

Following lunch, we were invited to visit the SOAR telescope on Cerro Pinchon, the neighboring mountain. We were given exclusive access to the facility like we were at the 4-meter earlier in the morning. Our friend Hugo introduced us to an old friend of his, Patricio who is the Observer support for the facility that is operated remotely by astronomers from La Serena, Brazil and the United States. We got some great footage of the 4-meter mirror of the telescope as well as its actuators on its underside thanks again to our two-camera setup. We left the SOAR telescope in time to make it back to the Cerro Tololo mess hall to meet up with the night’s observers at the 4-meter telescope, Sarah and Will. We followed them up to the 4-meter telescope after dinner to get some sunset shots (again, one camera inside and one outside) as the dome rotated and the dome and vents opened for the night. The color against the outside’s reflective dome gave the view a nice warm orange glow that even the night’s observers were taking footage and pictures of with their own personal cameras. Tomorrow we prepare to interview our astronomer friends from the 4-meter telescope and get some more footage of the smaller domes at the top of the summit.

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Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 05:26 PM | Permalink

Santiago’s bustling urban airport was teeming with travelers when we arrived, blue production bags in hand. We made our way through the arrival gate and followed the crowd to the customs and immigration lines. It was there that we met up with our final production teammate, Scott, who had taken a different route to Santiago than the rest of us. He traveled from San Francisco to Miami and finally to Santiago whereas the rest of us went from Sacramento to Dallas, Texas and finally to Santiago. We had all successfully arrived in Santiago, the first leg of the trip completed. We enjoyed the 3-hour layover that Santiago afforded us, allowing us to check our e-mails and grab a cup of coffee or Anita’s favorite, cappuchinos.

At noon, we took a quick puddle jump over to La Serena where we finally collected our luggage and made our way to the rental car stand. It was there that we had a hiccup in our plans when the rental car company could not locate our reservation and we had to improvise, making calls to other rental locations and planning some way of getting a vehicle that could fit our luggage and our crew of 4 to get up the mountain to Cerro Tololo.

Finally, after 2 hours of waiting and hoping for someone to get off siesta so we could get a vehicle, we were once again moving towards Cerro Tololo. We reached the summit about an hour and a half later and got ourselves checked into mountain administration. We then caught a bite to eat at the mess hall for the summit where we met some of the night’s observers and the mountain’s administrative staff. We got from them an idea of how the week was going to be – quiet due to the Chilean Independence Holiday. With their help, we will be able to make the most of the 3 days that we will be staying up here on Cerro Tololo.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 05:04 AM | Permalink

As our plane from Madrid landed safely on the tarmac of the Santa Cruz La Palma airport, we knew that we were in for a treat of a location based on the beautiful scenery seen from the windows of our plane. The coast of the island was covered in white-sanded beaches and small beach-town communities in and around the city of Santa Cruz. Our excitement for the new adventure in La Palma was not exhausted when we discovered that two of our bags had not been safely stowed in the luggage compartment on our aircraft. They were still in Madrid, waiting to be moved. We made arrangements with the airline to have them returned to us the next morning before our flight back to Madrid, but we were concerned for the shoot that waited ahead for us in the next 24 hours. We collected our bags and the rental car from the airport and headed out towards the mountaintop that lay above the clouds. We passed through multiple biomes on the way to the summit – beaches, cities, suburbs, forest and finally the dusty and lava-rock covered lands of the summit of Roque de los Muchachos. We spotted the first of the domes about 5 miles from our destination and we watched as more and more domes came into view the closer we got. About a mile from the very top of the mountain, we came to the administrative building for the observatory and we stopped to check in and get our rooming assignments for the night. The staff greeted us and they showed us around the facilities before giving us our room keys and allowing us to roam the mountain. As we had arrived to the summit a little before sunset, we took the opportunity to get some shots of the beautiful sunset as the sun descended below the clouds in a pink and orange glow.

Kris set up his still camera to do some time-lapse shots of the GTC against the Milky Way. The dome of the GTC closely resembles the Gemini Telescope domes, minus the difference in the ventilation systems.

The next morning, we got up a bit early to take footage of the sunrise over the ridge covered in telescopes. The view was spectacular and we enjoyed every moment watching the domes close up after a long night of observing. The rest of our day was scheduled to be at the GTC where construction of the dome and preparations for the telescope to become operational are still underway. Dr. Riccardo Scarpa showed us around the facility and explained the process of the dome’s construction over the past several years to us. The telescope achieved first light last year and the staff is prepared for the telescope to become completely operational within the next year. Our interview with Dr. Scarpa gave us some insight on Observing in the near future, giving us a preview of new technologies and theories that are being considered at the moment. With our lack of lighting gear due to the airline’s misplacement of our gear, we used what we could to get our shots well-lit with the work-lights of the dome. We got some great b-roll shots of the workers in the dome as they completed some final preperation work on the pistons on the segmented mirrors of the GTC and the structure itself. The interior sounds of welding, loud speaking and walkie talkies going off posed some difficulties with our audio capturing which caused us to move our intended schedule around a bit, holding our interview until the workers’ lunch break. At that time, we were completely alone in the dome besides a few of the workers who were just walking around the facility. Then, the only ambient noise heard in the audio equipment was a cell-phone ring or soft chatter every now and again.

We regretted the fact that we had to cut the wonderful afternoon short at the GTC, but we had an early evening flight to catch down in Santa Cruz. We collected our gear and raced down the mountain to discover even more travel difficulties beyond our still-lost luggage. Apparently Anita and Scott had been placed on an earlier flight to the lack of our knowledge. After some discussion and the purchase of 2 more tickets for the later flight, we were once again on schedule to return home.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 08:12 AM | Permalink

Tuesday morning we awoke bright and early again for a long drive out of the Netherlands towards France. Our final destination, the Observatory di Paris. We departed around 6am to beat the rush hour traffic in Paris. Unfortunately, we did not anticipate traffic in the cities that we would be passing through on the way to Paris. We stopped off at a cute little roadside cafeteria for breakfast and got our temporary caffeine fix with healthy doses of cappuccino and espresso (which could not compare to our daily cappuccinos in Italy, but they worked). Thanks to the maps application on Kris’ iPhone, we successfully navigated the 5-hour trip across Belgium to France. Once into the city, we made our way downtown, past the University and finally to the observatory complex where our hosts were anxiously awaiting our arrival.

Lunch at the observatory lounge was wonderful. We dined on French cheeses and breads as well as tried some freshly made quiche and the French specialty dessert, Floating Island. We got our fill of goodies and headed off to the main observatory building to begin setting up our interview with Dr. Tobias Owen. Dr. Owen is a professor of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii and is currently 12-days into a 3-month stay in Paris before returning to Hawaii. He and his wife are still settling into the Parisian atmosphere.

We took in the extraordinary view of the city from the observatory roof and enjoyed filming in one of the oldest domes at the facility that could be accessed from the roof. To aid in our lighting, we used the natural light of the opening of the dome to illuminate a staircase and an observer’s chair where Dr. Owen sat as we interviewed him. Once set up and prepared to film, we went to sync our audio and video together when one of the cameras completely shut down. In our frantic search for an answer to why this happened, we set up the lavaliere microphones hooked up to the lapel of Dr. Owen to collect audio and used one of the smaller cameras to capture the close-up shot that was lost due to the collapse of the one HD camera. The interview took a bit longer than expected, but to everyone’s delight, Dr. Owen did a wonderful job of answering all of our questions in the time we had remaining. As soon as the interview was completed, the crew packed up the gear and vacated the dome while Scott and Dr. Owen went to the lower floors of the observatory and to the outside entryway of the building to get some additional perspective and b-roll shots to complete our desired shots from our road trip.

The quick trip to Paris was quite an adventure. 5 hour drive from Middelburg, 2-hour stay in the city for the interview and then another 6-hour drive back to Amsterdam to spend the night there before our early-morning flight from Amsterdam to Madrid on our way to the island of La Palma. The most western island of the Canaries housed the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, a beautiful collection on telescopes at the top of the highest summit of La Palma.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 07:41 AM | Permalink

My apologies for the absence of a blog in the last few days, but we were without a sufficient internet connection location while in Holland. As this is so, there is much to recall about the events of the last few days. On last Saturday morning, we departed bright and early from our hotel in Florence for the airport. We were sad to leave the historic and picturesque city, but we knew that we had more work to do on the other side of Europe. We arrived early afternoon in Amsterdam and collected all of our gear and the rental car and headed into the city. We needed to check into our hotel and make sure that our things were secure before we wandered into downtown Amsterdam to get dinner and to take in the local sites. Downtown Amsterdam is a mix of modern and historic with its social atmosphere geared towards a younger demographic with its bars and night clubs as well as its gothic architecture and city monuments that document the city’s history. We enjoyed the jaunt we took around the city while we searched for the most efficient routes to and from some of the landmarks of the city. We were planning on seeing the Rijks museum while we were walking around, but we arrived a few minutes too late and found ourselves only able to view its magnificent courtyard gardens. As the sun set, we realized how tired our bodies were due to the rigorous travel schedule and decided to turn in early to prepare for the long day ahead the next morning. Sunday morning brought us some prep-work for the reenactments scheduled for the next day. We went by the costume shop in downtown Amsterdam to pick up the actors’ 16th and 17th century period costumes. We then took our completely packed rental car to the city of Goes where we were to lodge for the next two nights. At the hotel, we met up with one of our production advisors, Albert VanHelden, who orchestrated much of the details for the reenactments on Monday. We dined with Dr. VanHelden as well as representatives of the Middelburg Astronomical Society. We were overjoyed to learn that they were planning a celebration of their own for the invention of the telescope. Their celebration, scheduled for fall 2008 will celebrate the introduction of the telescope to the masses by Lippershey. With short notice from us about our needs for a telescope replica for our reenactments, their team was able to recreate one of Huygens’ 13-foot telescopes for our filming purposes. The telescope was beautiful!

We continued our introduction to our new friends at a castle (names Baar Land) about 20 miles from Goes where we were scheduled to film our reenactments of Lipphershey, Huygens, Copernicus and Janssen. The castle belongs to a man whose family consists of a long line of bakers who have done well in the industry. As we filmed at the castle we learned that Hans Lippershey and fellow optics-maker, Janssen, were neighbors in Middelburg during the time when Lippershey presented his telescope to the masses, however it is argued that Janssen was the first telescope-maker and that Lippershey received the credit for the invention because nobody could believe that Janssen, a so-called scoundrel and criminal in his time, invented the telescope. The diversity of shots we could get on the grounds of the estate was fantastic for our needs. We were able to use the interior rooms as well as the gardens and the estate’s outdoor rooms for our filming purposes. If only the weather was as accommodating for us. We encountered some difficult conditions for filming in the mid-afternoon when dark clouds began rolling over the estate and rain began falling. We spent the next few hours gauging our filming based on the outdoor weather, trying our best to use times when it was raining to complete our interior shots. We successfully filmed four reenactments that day, concluding our series of scenes with our host standing in as Hans Lippershey. Though we left the estate around 5pm, our day was far from complete. We were headed into downtown Middelburg where we shot an interview with our advisor Albert VanHelden. We filmed the interview in the city’s center near the city hall that was remodeled after World War II after the original was destroyed during the war. Its current style and architecture matches the plans for the original building that was destroyed.

Please stay tuned for the next update from the road. Next we will explore the treasures of the Observatory of Paris and the beauty of the Telescopes on the Island of La Palma.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 03:29 PM | Permalink

Don: Rising late after a long night's sleep that largely repaid the previous night's deficit, I breakfasted with Steve Shore, then bathed and packed in a calm and leisurely manner while he went to the office before returning to take me to the airport, in plenty of time to check in for my flight to London Gatwick. Plenty of time indeed--the dreaded words "flight cancelled" were all to visible on the monitors. Before long I had learned that for an impressive large extra price one might be able to fly on another airline to London, but that British Airways' plan--discussed up and down the nonmoving queue--was to bus us over to Venice for the flight at 10:30 PM. Unfortunately, they could not confirm that we would have space there until the check-in for the Venice-to-London flight opened several hours later (!) This Venice plan eventually was--I think--announced, but before this came into focus, most of us, thanks to the cell phone calls to British Airways from many standing in line, were rebooked on the British Airways flight at 10:50 PM (but now showing as departing at 11:20 PM on the BA website) from Pisa to Gatwick. Rumours abounded, as the British might say, that Gatwick would be totally closed by the time we would arrive, leaving us to doze there until near dawn, but after I emailed my friend Hallam in London, I learned that there are trains from Gatwick at least until 2 AM--but there is no guarantee I can make that train. If I do, Hallam, that generous soul, is willing to meet me, provide me with a few hours' sleep, and take me to Heathrow for my American Airlines flight to JFK. A backup plan would be to go direct from Gatwick to Heathrow if the flight is even more delayed (or could it be cancelled?--the reasons for the earlier cancellation remain unclear, but talk of a sudden strike made the rounds). If all goes reasonably well, however, I'll reach New York on Friday afternoon in time for all the wedding celebrations, with less sleep but more adventures (of the waiting in the airport variety) than I anticipated. The weather here remains marvelous, and another sort of traveler--perhaps my younger self with imagined wealth--would hire a taxi to drive to the Field of Miracles and gaze once more upon the cathedral, the baptistery, and the most famous building in Italy, which always recalls to me the words from Cole Porter's fine song about Lisa (and about Becky-Wecky-o: Is she still drinking on that stinking Ponte Vecchio?--which I crossed once more yesterday). Italy has its drawbacks, but for ambience, Tuscany stays hard to surpass.

The crew: As our friend Don was waiting to catch his late-evening flight on British Airways out of Pisa, the production team was treated to a day on the town in Firenze. Kris surprised us by getting reservations to go into the Uffizi Museum which houses some of the most treasured art pieces from the Renaissance era known to the modern world. It was overwhelming to see so much art history in one place and to experience it as people did hundreds of years ago. From the top of the Uffizi, a gorgeous Firenze skyline was visible and we marveled at it as our cameras and camcorders captured the memories for us. We were quite disappointed, however that we were unable to view the Statue of David – which we found out later is housed at the Academy Museum a few blocks away. We completed our restful afternoon by wandering the city streets of Firenze, taking some footage of the cathedrals and down the busy blocks. We shopped to our hearts’ content and we made sure to get the necessary nick-knacks for our family and friends. We enjoyed a wonderful pasta dinner and gelato to sum up our night and prepare for the next day. Friday – it’s another pick-up day for shots in the city. We get to search for those elusive street shots that show the energy and culture of Firenze.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 01:13 AM | Permalink

My final full day in Italy on this trip began before 6 AM--about four hours before my usual rise time--so that Steven and I and Steve's colleague Laura could drive to Florence in time for our rendezvous at the hotel with the film crew, our Galileo re-enactor, his friend and the make-up man, so that we could then move on to meet Franco Pacini to be let into Galileo's house in Arcetri for our morning filming. Steve's car proved handy--and Steve and Laura still handier as they went out in search of a candle for our scenes, and came back with a big one--and along with two taxis, transported the crew and equipment further up the hill, where we unloaded on a beautiful morning and began to set up. Before long Kris and Scott, with plenty of help from Anita and Krista, had prepared the basement room with a shaft of light from outside for the Galileo recantation scene, and Stefano, our Galileo, was in full beard and costume. He came in old-man style, full of woe and angst, and recited his recantation, which I, having copied it from the exhibit at the museum the day before (see photo of Galileo's telescope), felt to be almost my own words, and quite sobering words they are too: "I, Galileo, abjure, curse, and detest my errors and heresies . . . "
The second photo gives a feeling for how the shot worked-having said his piece, Galileo kneels into the darkness, highly symbolic and effective in my judgment. Working against a noon deadline, we finished that shot and set up the next, upstairs, of Galileo with his telescope behind a table--all the props lent by the museum the day before. Finishing on time, but still not finished with our needs, we adjourned back to the hotel and decided to film the younger Galileo--45 instead of 69, in his prime and full of fame and vigor--against the walls of the hotel courtyard, which looked properly old Tuscan, and so moved on to lunch near the Porta Romana. From there I went to Santa Croce to admire the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante, and lesser lights of the Florentine pantheon, and proceeded to meet my friend Sara Matthews Grieco, who runs the Syracuse University program in Italy. Her late arrival--meetings have already grown too long as the fall semester begins--called for more rapid conversation, and soon it was time for her to leave and me to meet the crew for our celebration dinner, attended by Karen and Giorgio from the museum. Once again I had to duck out early to catch the Pisa train, and now, sleep deprived but relaxed, am ready for a good eight or nine hours and so to the airport and London tomorrow.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 12:45 AM | Permalink

In Florence and Pisa this morning, a late-summer thunderstorm descended with force, and, where I was staying at Steve Shore's apartment, produced some impressive flickering and computer problems, but passed over before long, leaving the city in oncoming sunshine. After various issues had been resolved by Kris and the crew, we convened at the Museum for the History of Science, where the staff proved remarkably accommodating. Karen, one of the Museum's Science Education Services staff, made sure that all of our needs were met by spending the day negotiating between us and the Museum curators what could and could not be filmed in the museum. With the most extraordinary luck and with the overwhelming trust of the museum staff, we were allowed to film everything we wanted to during our few hours at the museum. The first order of business was to open the windows to reduce the heat, then to find the necessary extension cords and other paraphenalia, and then to set up the shots--of the giant armillary of nested spheres; of a couple of key books by Galileo (the Sidereus Nuncius that brought news of his discoveries with the telescope to the world, and the Dialogue Concerning the Two Great World Ssytems that brought the wrath of the church on his head); of the cracked lens said to come from Galileo's first telescope; and--finest and most cheering of all--of Galileo's oldest telescope, which at first was said to have to remain its case, but which before long was produced for our close-up filming, and then, to touch history, for each of us to look through across the Arno to the Piazza Michelangelo.
Certainly one can say that modern telescopes are much easier to use, but just as clearly, Galileo's telescope worked. By 5 PM we were nearly through--not counting negotiating the final details of who owed whom what for the material we got on tape and which the musuem has rights to use--and in possession of the props for the filming tomorrow at Galileo's home in Arcetri. Again, Karen and Georgio's assistance and trust in us allowed us to borrow replica items from the museum for the shoot on Wednesday. Two taxi loads got us up the hill, with a stop for wine, and we are now about to dig into a Tuscan warm-up repasts of bread, cheese, chips, and an assortment of the red liquid that makes Chianti famous. Since the filming tomorrow begins early--and I have to rise that much earlier to arrive from Pisa--fatigue may remove the chance to send another entry before I leave for London on Thursday. Let me describe again our happy team: Kris Koenig, our leader, totally unflappable except when heavily provoked, and even then capable of finding the best way out; Anita, ready to do whatever must be done to make the filming work; Scott, whose resemblance to Robin Williams seems more noticeable as time goes on, and whose striving for perfection as a cameraman remains impressive day after day; Krista, our intern who has taken the semester off from UC Irvine to participate in this project, as affable and competent a 19-year-old as one may hope to meet in the USA, and myself, two cases worth (as they say in Kansas City) of stored-up, pent-up knowledge of various arcana that surface at appropriate and inappropriate times. I'll miss the hard work and feelings of success once I leave the team as it goes on to Holland, Paris, and the Canary Islands, but it has been great to have the sun shine (almost always) on our efforts to produce excellent television despite the lack of a champagne budget. Good wine will have to do.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 12:41 AM | Permalink

My long walks on Sunday induced long sleep on Monday, with the result that by the time I reached Florence, our Galileo had already been selected by Kris and the crew--about eight showed up, just the sort of number we needed. I went to the internet shop and then walked to the museum of science, where I discovered to my horror that I no longer had my glasses, my beautiful, progressive glasses that I had just shelled out big bucks for. I hoofed it back to the internet shop, then to the loggia at the main piazza; in both places helpful and sympathetic people said with regret that they had no glasses. Fearful of the outcome, I tried my last hope--the museum itself, where it turned out that indeed they had them. This made lunch a lot better--it was already pretty fine, since the cafeteria in the Uffizi center makes American ones look pretty punk; furthermore, as our pleasant contact person from th museum--Karen, a Canadian formerly an archaeologist, later trained in museum work--pointed out, mentioning the museum gets you a discount. We adjourned to the museum for a bit more negotiating, and then, leaving Kris's wife Ella and Michel Mayor's wife Francoise to stroll downtown, took taxis to the hotel for our gear and then up to the hilltop where the main observatory building looks out over the Tuscan hills. A couple of enjoyable hours on the roof followed, with Michel performing brilliantly--I suppose he is even better in French--and then we repacked, called two more taxis (may I say with pride that I did this in Italian) and relaxed at the hotel before taking a long but downhill walk to a seafood restaurant in the Piazza Santa Spiritu. I had to leave before coffee time to hoof it back to the train station; caught the 9:57 and was in Pisa by 11:15--but there, confused by the nighttime bus situation, got off too soon and walked another good chunk, to my chagrin, though it did provide the chance to see thousands of young university students (termtime is just beginning) on the Arno riverfront, lounging in front of the bars, smoking, drinking, arguing, discussing, and generally scaring the older generation who dream of a young population eager to learn and to succeed.
Tomorrow we hope to film Michel at Galileo's tomb in the Santa Croce church--if we can use our Vatican Observatory clout to get permission in a hurry--and at the museum in the afternoon. Wednesday will be Galileo's house, though we have a problem with time that Kris hopes to work into a better situation through negotiation with Franco Pacini, the former director of the observatory and our key contact. With luck all will fall into place and we'll have had three good filming days. Certainly the weather couldn't be better, and the excellent food adds to the feeling that life is to be lived.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 10:26 PM | Permalink

Had a good night's sleep at Steve Shore's apartment, walked to the railway station in Pisa and caught the train for Florence, in perfect weather, looking out over the Tuscan landscape so often painted during the Renaissance and, for all I know, afterward. A bus took me up the hill to the Hotel Villa Betania, where Scott discussed the Vulcan mind-melt that led him and Anita to follow the wrong car on the London ring road yesterday--as things turned out, only coolth was lost, not time, since Scott and Anita arrived as they were always going to, at the Florence airport, and a nice fellow from the hotel was there to meet them and put them in a taxi. Scott generously let me take a shower in his room (I hadn't wanted to wake Steve before I left) after had we had an enjoyable talk, during which I pointed out the coincidence that the professor he had spent Friday afternoon filming, Rob Iliffe, was married to the former girlfriend of Aaron Soule, whom he knows reasonably well, since Steve's girlfriend relied heavily on the research of Aaron's father Michael Soule to obtain her Ph.D.--also last Friday!--in conservation biology, and all have spent time at the Rocky Mountain Biological Institute together. Before long Kris returned, then Anita, and eventually Krista, with a nice couple from Chico who joined up to see a bit of the filming and a lot more of Florence. And in the midst of this, Michel Mayor and his wife came in from Geneva, delayed about 18 hours by the Alitalia strike action in Milan. An excellent conversation sprang up, continued in the pizzeria to which we adjourned as dusk approached, located just uphill from the "Porta Romana" that marks the southern extent of the old city walls. (The Florentines say "Africa begins at the Porta Romana," expressing their low view of people to the south of them, just as the Milanese explain that Africa begins south of the Po, and the Romans say that Africa begins south of Lazio (I think that the Neapolitans also say that Africa begins at Eboli, where the countryside turns a lot harsher.) I had to leave early to catch a train, which led to a long journey--I missed the train, but there was another in less than half an hour; however, that train sat for nearly half an hour extra in the station, and then, instead of going to Pisa as billed, came to a final halt only halfway, in Empoli, where another 40-minute wait produced the slow train to Pisa, making all the stops (more than one might expect in 35 kilometers). Another brisk walk brought me home, and so, with more huffing and puffing under my belt than usual, I am ready for sleep. Tomorrow is the Galileo casting call--will there be no one to re-enact for us?
Two of them? Twenty? A hundred?

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 10:00 PM | Permalink

Up this morning with worries about how Bev Bevis was after her fall last night--it turns out that she indeed broke her wrist, and may need a plate or pin, after staying at the hospital until 4 AM. Richard Hills was nevertheless game to go out and film at the radio astronomy observatory, where pulsars were discovered and radio interferometry made important strides. On a fine fair morning we heard Richard tell us about the spectrum and the Newtonian reflectors used at many radio observatories, then drove off toward Gatwick, with a stop to buy an extra hard suitcase for camera equipment.

This stop, plus traffic around the London ring road, left us worried about the time to make the earlier flight, on which Krista, Kris, and I were booked--as we drove in haste, somehow the car behind, driven by Scott with Anita beside him, failed to follow us toward the airport, and despite our frantic honking and signalling, disappeared from our sight down the wrong highway. We proceeded to the
airport, discovered that we had time to make our flight--plenty of time, in fact, since it was an hour and a half late, including the wait on the runway--but when we got to Pisa, only then learned that the others' flight was not to Pisa but to Florence. Since Scott and Anita had no knowledge of the hotel in which they were to lodge, this created a problem. My friend Steve Shore, there to meet me, did his best to help Kris deal with this, and I think somehow a message was finally sent via
the airline. In any case when I called Kris at 12:45 AM, all was well--except for the lack of a full explanation as to how this all came about. I went with Steve and his girlfriend to a fine pizzeria in the center of Pisa, across from Galileo's house, and ate and drank appropriately. Now it's time to sleep before rising to go up to Florence tomorrow; however, we won't be filming Mayor until later, because an Alitalia strike has delayed his arrival from Geneva.

So--some success, some difficulty, some prospects.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 01:49 AM | Permalink

We reached Cambridge by 3 PM on Thursday, quite tired after our abbreviated sleep and filming at Stonehenge, parked our cars at the backs across the Cam from Trinity College, and did a couple of hours of inspection of filming sites and possibilities before taking three of the crew (Scott the director of photography, Krista the intern/all-around assistant, and Anita the videographer) to the local Holiday Inn before Kris Koenig the producer and I drove on to the home of Richard Hills, where we met my friend Hallam Murray, our Isaac Newton, arriving from London with his newly-rented costume, and Beverly Bevis, Richard's wife, whom I also met at Berkeley forty years ago, arriving at the same time. The five of us had a fine Chinese dinner, then acquired some much-needed sleep before arising for a good day's work. We picked up the rest of the crew across town and went, with minimal directional difficulty, to the Whipple Science Museum, where Lisa Kemble, whom I had met in June and has not quite yet left for Stanford and her new curating job, allowed us to film Newton's telescope model: Hallam robed himself as Newton, and a fine looking specimen he made too (see photo). After the usual adjustment of the lighting, background, and similar matters, we obtained our footage and returned to our cars, happily parked nearby (because the term starts only in a month, downtown Cambrige is relatively quiet.) From the museum we drove our cars into the rear of Trinity College and dropped off our gear, parked by college sufferance on the lane across the bridge, and set ourselves up in the room where Newton once made chemical experiments to film him holding a prism--by good fortune, with the sun out, I was able to use a pocket mirror to shine a beam of light from outside onto the prism to produce a happy effect in the image. We were forced to break for lunch by the porters' union rules, and after a quick meal returned for the arrival of Rob Iliffe, head of the Newton Project, a professor at Sussex University and husband of Sarah Dry, whom I met long ago as the girlfriend of my friend Michael Soule's son Aaron. Iliffe was happy to cooperate with our enjoyable, if not totally original plan--to film him in a punt on the river Cam as he discoursed in mellow phrases on aspects of Newton's career. We had made arrangements with the boathouse operator by the Trinity bridge the day before, a fellow who seemed recognizable as a long-haired former hippy sort, quite familiar in Berkeley, 27 years renting punts on the Cam, but with a deep Scots accent from Paisley. Our little conceit was to pull back from a tight shot to reveal that the punter with his long pole was in fact Newton (see photo). Getting the interview on the water took more than a couple of hours, because quite naturally every passing punt had a comment or expressed a desire to be in the shot (I learned that when the film about Sylvia Plath was being filmed in this location, the company paid good money to close the river. They also threw camouflage netting over the new footbridge, and when the cows in the field did not appear sufficiently photogenic, arranged for a better-looking bunch of cows to replace them. We lack this sort of budget and time.) The punt contained Newton at the rear, Iliffe in the cockpit, Kris asking questions, Scott doing the photography, and Krista holding the sound boom and doing the sound recording. While I performed my key task of sitting by the river to guard the equipment, who should appear to say hello but Sir Martin Rees, Master of Trinity College, Astronomer Royal, and President of the Royal Society--a triple-barreled threat and by far the most powerful scientist in the UK.
Although he had told me previously that he would not be in town, he was just back from a cosmology conference in Venice, schmoozing with (among others) my friend Catherine Cesarsky, whose last day as the director of the European Southern Observatory and European head of the ALMA radio telescope project in Chile was today--we plan to film her at the ALMA site (16,000 feet up in the Andean "foothills") at the end of September. Martin spoke in a friendly way, as befits our more than four decades of acquaintance, but was not interested in appearing in the program--he certainly has plenty to do, starting with next week's ceremony at Trinity College awarding the million-dollar Gruber prize to the two teams of astronomers who discovered the dark energy. Once the team had safely landed and Rob Iliffe had taken off to return to Sussex, we managed to steal a bit of time (the porters having grown sympathetic to our efforts) filming Newton on the bowling green, tossing a few bowls (not easy found, but they were) to symbolize his researches into dynamics, then walking in the Great Court, deep in thought with his book, and finally tossing and eating an apple.

(We had also filmed, just for fun, Newton with his iPhone--actually Kris's--which, if sent to Steve Jobs, might result in a big contract, or at least iPhones for everyone.) Happy with our day's work, even though were forced to miss a few scenes--for example, filming in the great hall, where Newton took many a meal, rich in portraits from Henry VIII on down (that monarch having founded the college)--we returned in good spirits to dine by invitation at the home of Richard and Bev, who prepared a most marvelous meal, featuring--after a rich mix of appetizers--guinea fowl, red pepper and aubergine salad, small potatoes, and summer pudding. Also there were my high-school classmate Jo Hoffman and her husband Mark, up from London because September marks their time to return to the house they rent in Cambridge, under renovation during August. The conversation flowed like wine, which was also present in abundance, which might be
involved in the unfortunate end to the evening, when Bev slipped and hurt her wrist. She and Richard are now at the hospital, and we await the news from the National Health Service. Kris and Hallam most efficiently cleaned up the kitchen to the best of their abilities, while I heartily approved. Tomorrow we'll assess how things stand--our plan had been, and may still be, to film Richard at the Cambridge radio telescopes, before going to Gatwick to take our flights to Pisa. So life has its ups and downs--easy to be philosophical when it is not one's own wrist causing the pain and upset. May all go well and yield a better world, richer in astronomical knowledge.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 01:15 AM | Permalink