400 Years of the Telescope

David Dooling of NSO came a-knocking at our cabin door this morning, prepared to show us the Sunspot facilities. He took us up to the solar telescope at the top of the hill that is shaped like an unusual triangle/elongated pyramid. We took some b-roll footage for outside the building, trudging through the brush and rocks, trying not to make contact with the poison oak and trying not to collect any ticks on our clothing.
We all made sure to brush ourselves off before entering the building that housed pristine instrument tables with lasers and mirrors. The interior of the solar telescope looked like a mad scientist’s lair from some 1960s Bond film. The orange glow of the low lights mixed with the spherical hanging lights in the ceiling gave the interior a retro feel. The only thing bringing it into the 21st century was the dozens of computer screens displaying everything from calculations to mirror calibrations to a visual depiction of the sun in real-time.
David opened some of the partitions, giving us a clearer view of some of the technology in the lab used to calibrate the telescope. The camera captured mirrors and lasers and bouncing light from inside the instrument cases. Kris even got an amazing shot of the primary mirror that sits 170 feet below the main floor of the building. The “Wishing Well”, as David calls the mirror, can be seen by looking down a hole in one of the instruments on the main floor.

After the shoot was complete, David escorted us to the Visitor’s Center where we would get to see one of the smaller solar telescopes that was presented in the visitor’s center displays. As we entered the parking lot at the building, we realized that we were not the only people visiting the mountain this morning. We happened upon a PT Cruiser car show. About 50 PT Cruisers were filing into the parking lot, letting their respective passengers get their souvenirs and trinkets before the show began. We entered the packed visitor’s center which we realized was only packed in through the doorway and in the gift shop, but as we approached the solar telescope display, we found that the computer was not up and running. After about 15 minutes of trying to boot the computer, we came to the conclusion that the telescope was down for the day. Bummer! Before leaving the visitor’s center, we were enticed (just like the car-show visitors) to purchase some souvenirs from our visit. We picked up these great sunspot t-shirts with a huge grinning sun on the back. What a treat!

The crew descended the mountain in record time and was on their way to Tucson. This change in our schedule (we were supposed to be heading back to Las Cruces until Monday) was due to a change in our production schedule. Our schedule to interview Dr. Owen Gingerich at Harvard Observatory got moved up a week and the crew needed to fly out the next morning instead of a week later. Anita and Kris were set to fly to Boston Sunday morning for the interview and Krista was heading back to Chico to complete the audio files for transcription. The crew drove the 6 hours to Tucson, stopping for Sonics (mmm jalapeño poppers and cheese fries) for lunch and stopping at “The Thing” a roadside attraction about an hour out of Tucson (I highly recommend this to anyone traveling to or from Arizona!)

Once the team had arrived in Tucson and settled in a hotel a block from the airport, they planned to spend the evening with Kris’ brother, Dean and his wife Donna, owners of the Arizona company, Starizona, which sells telescopes, and telescope and camera equipment. We had no idea until we went to dinner at a local Mexican Restaurant, but it was Dean and Donna’s wedding anniversary. Congratulations to them!! The crew returned with Dean and Donna to their store where outside, some local amateur astronomers had their telescopes set up and observing constellations, distant galaxies and the comet within Perseus which has been visible this past weekend. The crew spent about 30 minutes observing with the crowd, until they decided to return to the hotel and get things packed and prepared for the following morning when they would be departing from Arizona to Boston (Kris and Anita) and back to Chico (Krista). Wish us luck in our travels!

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:57 AM | Permalink

We departed early Thursday morning from our hotel room in Las Cruces, New Mexico heading east towards Sacramento Mountains where we would find the Apache Point Observatory and NSO’s Sunspot Observatory. We drove nearly four hours before stopping at the New Mexico Space and Science center where we got a chance to take a break, stretch our legs, and gather some pretty cool trinkets to take home with us. Kris, in the meantime, took that time to make some important phone calls/conferences to discuss the NSF grant and the Planetarium Program script. While at the space and science center, Anita and I got the opportunity to marvel at some retro rockets and jet engines that aided the US’s efforts during the Space Race. We especially had fun playing with a little contraption known as the “Whispering Dish” where the sound waves are collected and focused each time you speak on the opposite dome, located about 40 feet from where the first dome was located.

We raced off from the parking lot of the Space and Science center up to the Apache Point Observatory where we were scheduled to meet with Stephanie Snedden, Astronomer at the SLOAN Digital Sky Survey. We arrived a few minutes early and were treated to a quick tour of the mountain’s facilities by Gretchen Van Doren, Public Outreach Coordinator at Apache Point. We checked with Gretchen to make sure that our equipment would be able to be set up for the shots that we hoped to get. Due to some area and space constraints, we knew that we would be smashed into the side of the SLOAN’s platform railing in order to achieve the amazing shot that we imagined for the interview that evening.

We met up with Stephanie around 2:30pm and we discussed what we hoped to film that afternoon. She assured us that we would be able to see the “barn” enclosure’s opening over the telescope before the telescope’s preparations for the evening’s observing. This event would take place around 6:00pm, right before sunset, therefore we were given a few hours to relax and get settled at our cabin at Sunspot. We drove the additional mile up the road to Sunspot to our cabin, checked in and dropped off our luggage. We were happy to note that the cabin had separate rooms for each of us and TWO full bathrooms. The cabin also had a washer and dryer that we definitely used during the evening to wash our first 5-days of clothes.

We drove up to the Sunspot administration building and their main lab where we met with the housing coordinator, Rebecca, and our NSO contact for our Saturday shoot, David Dooling, the Sunspot Educational Outreach Coordinator. We planned on meeting him early Saturday morning to get our b-roll footage so we could get on the road early.

We returned to Apache Point Observatory and were alerted to the fact that the telescope preparations for the evening were undergoing some technical difficulties. This gave the crew even more time to relax, and per the suggestion of Gretchen, we climbed around below the SLOAN telescope platform on a search for fossils from the Pennsylvania Period. Apparently, the valley below this mountain range was once the bottom of a huge lake. Therefore, the mountains surrounding the valley were part of the beaches and hills enclosing this water mass and some of the creatures of the water got caught in the sediment of the mountains. We searched for a good half hour for anything that looked cool to take home with us. Anita found two small rocks encasing some shelled creatures and Kris found a gigantic rock that had some coral and a nautilus sitting next to each other. In an effort to not have to tote the large rock, Kris attempted to break the rock in half, which resulted in the rock dropping on his big toe, which he nursed the rest of the evening.

Returning to our actual work as videographers and not paleontologists, we met up again with Stephanie and Gretchen to film the enclosure opening and then the interview with Stephanie in front of the telescope. Both events occurred in a matter of 45 minutes and the crew felt very good about the lighting and the color that we captured right at sunset. Following the interview, Kris set up his still camera for some nighttime time-lapse photography that he would leave for a few hours and return to get early the next morning. The crew completed their full day by driving down the hill a bit to the town of Cloudcross and had a wonderful, filling meal at the Western Restaurant. They enjoyed their meals, checked their phones for messages and headed back up the hill for the night.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:55 AM | Permalink

Wednesday morning, the team awoke bright and early, prepared for an early morning departure. Their sleepy eyes, in need of caffeine and about 2 more hours of sleep, crossed the street to the nearest gas station and got fuel for the car and coffee for themselves. They realized about two hours into the trip that they needed another refueling, not for the car, but for them – the first round of coffee hadn’t done the trick. To solve this problem, the team stopped once more about 40 miles from the Arizona border for coffee and a small bite to eat. While making this stop, the team contacted Jennifer Oman, our amazing NSF grant-writer and Greg Payne, local Chico artist, who were staying in Kingman, Arizona for the week. We made plans to meet them in Kingman for some coffee and a chat before we started on the final stretch towards Flagstaff, Arizona.

We arrived at Lowell Observatory at 2pm and were immediately connected with our contact, Steele Wotkyns, public information officer at the observatory. He set us up for the afternoon with Kevin Schindler, the outreach manager of the Observatory, for an interview about the history of Lowell. The observatory, established at the very end of the 19th century, was a major contributor to scientific observations around the turn of the century. For example, the 24” Clark Telescope was used by observers in the early 20th century to observe Mars. Another telescope at the observatory was used to make the first observations of Pluto. After the interview, the crew set up the PlanOCam and had Dr. Schindler and another of the outreach officers move the telescope while the crew stood outside the dome. The interview and "Plan-o-Cam" footage acquisition went as well as could be expected.

The team now rests up for another near-full day of travel through the rest of Arizona towards New Mexico. They will sleep in New Mexico tomorrow night, prepared to ascend the mountain at Sunspot on Friday. Wish us luck on the roads through the Southwest with all those big-rig trucks.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:10 PM | Permalink

As soon as the crew (Anita and Kris) returned from the East Coast on Sunday, they didn’t even have a chance to unpack their things before heading back off to complete some of the last-minute interviews in the Southwest United States. Monday in the office was anticipated to be the day to pack the gear and get all of the final details of the trip tied up, but an early morning phone call from the Los Angeles Forest Services made our day more interesting. We were alerted to the severity of the Los Angeles and San Diego area forest fires that were raging over the previous weekend. According to the forest services, the firefighters were in chaos trying to salvage what they could of burning homes and ranger stations. The rangers told us that it would be impossible for us to go up to Mt. Wilson in the Los Angeles hills on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Moreover, no media is permitted on the mountain until AT LEAST November 1st. This news threw our crew into a bit of a panic. Luckily, all of the trip’s changes were taken care of by 3pm that afternoon. All of our travel plans were moved up 2 days and thanks to the helpfulness of our observatory friends, we were able to move our travel plans forward, salvaging all of our interviews.

Tuesday morning, we met at the office at 7am to pack our gear into the rental SUV and prepare for the next two weeks of road tripping together. It took us about four hours and two Starbucks stops to reach our first destination, Lick Observatory in the San Jose Mountains. We met with Dr. Alex Filippenko from UC Berkeley who escorted us to the KAIT dome where the Automatic Imaging Telescope resides. The telescope, which looks like a miniature model of some of the larger telescopes that might be seen on Mauna Kea or Cerra Tololo for example, takes “snapshots” of distant galaxies, searching for changes week-by-week and year-by-year, hoping to spot a supernova burst. The telescope itself is controlled remotely and is controlled almost entirely by its own robotic system, using its mechanical components and its software to guide its nightly observations. Dr. Filippenko who we had interviewed a few weeks ago, was happy to show us the telescope and explain the developments made by his team over the last 10 years since the telescope was constructed.

We departed from the observatory after re-packing our gear and headed due east down the backside of the mountain toward the Interstate-5 freeway. We enjoyed the winding roads, lined with trees covered in gold, orange and red leaves, a pleasant autumn sight. The crew stopped in the town of Patterson, right off the I-5 and ate a celebratory lunch after hearing some good news about our progress in the NSF grant process. The NSF committee had sent the team an e-mail alerting them that their initial preliminary proposal had been accepted, the first step in the two-step NSF grant process. The team now needs to complete the full grant proposal, giving the NSF committee more information about the goals and the plans of the production already in progress.

Back on the road again, the team headed east, determined to reach the city of Mojave before deciding to settle in for the evening.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:08 PM | Permalink

Transit to Chicago. Successful. A well-deserved rest taken.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:37 AM | Permalink

We woke early to join the Cleveland Rush hour on our way to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. We set up in their observatory for an interview with Dr. Lawrence Krauss, Director, Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics, at Case Western University. The staff of the Museum was very accommodating, and we pulled off a quick and fabulous interview that I wish could have been longer. Dr. Krauss is brilliant yet humble, funny and insightful and he’ll definitely score points with the viewers. We packed up, and rushed off to the Naval Observatory in Washington D.C.
Six hours later, we drove up to the Naval Observatory, and met with Geoff Chester, the Public Relations Officer. He informed us of the unique nature of the unique nature of the U.S. Naval Observatory, both in history and in time. See, the original and still primary goal of the observatory is to track time. Time itself is a complex subject, but Chester made it easy to understand. A quick run-up to the Washington Beltway toward Baltimore left us hungry and exhausted. Tomorrow we face 2 more airports, a new time-zone, and a chance to visit our friends at Adler.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:33 AM | Permalink

We found our way to the Cincinnati Observatory, established in 1842. There, we set up an interview with Educational Officer John Ventre, who gave us the story behind the telescope’s history and a fellow named Ormsby M. Mitchel. Mitchel was a West Point Graduate, and an avid astronomy buff. After a short stint as an officer in the army, he returned to Cincinnati where he practiced law for a brief period of time. He then turned his attention to teaching mathematics and trying to establish the nation’s first professional observatory.

President Adams had unsuccessfully tried for years to create an observatory that would be on par with the great observatories of the day. Mitchel had much better success with the wealthy individuals in the community of Cincinnati for the construction of the observatory. Mitchel was selected to head this endeavor, and to be its first director.

The Civil War broke out, and Mitchel took up the call to return to the Federal Army. Mitchel would become a hero for the North, however he died of Yellow Fever before seeing the conclusion of the war.

The observatory has had a long and rich history, and has gone through many changes. It was slated for demolition in the 1990’s as its usefulness as a research observatory had come to an end. A group of private citizens rallied to create a non-profit that would save this historical site. It now operates daily as an astronomy education center.

Our second interview was with one of our advisors, Trudy E. Bell of the Antique Telescope Society. She gave us an overview of differences between refractors and reflectors of the 18th and 19th centuries.

After our interviews, we packed up the car and drove 4 hours to Cleveland, where we ate a late dinner and watched the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox on a tiny TV in the restaurant. I didn’t know you could make a Chili Relleno with 7-11’s cheese-sauce. I’m not sure where this recipe came from, but I bet it didn’t come from Sonora, Mexico. This trip has made us aware of the inverse square law regarding Mexican cuisine: the farther away you are from Mexico, the less authentic it is. I’m looking forward to our travels next week in the Southwest, where every night we will be assured of truly wonderful Mexican dining.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:25 AM | Permalink

An early wake up call only accentuated the fact that I had gone to bed at 2 am. Groggily I wandered down the hall to meet the cheerful face of Anita as she stepped out of her room. She quickly analyzed the situation, which only coffee could solve. I stumbled down the stairs behind her, as she grabbed some cafeteria coffee to go. We met Mike in the lobby, and headed back to the GBT to grab a quick interview with him. During the mile and a half trip to the telescope, Mike informed us of the excellent educational outreach that this facility conducts. This was highlighted by the fact that a whole pack of Cub Scouts were trained the previous night on one of the radio telescopes to earn their astronomy merit badges. This type of exposure to science, early in a child’s life, is what our country should seek. Its only through these experiences that our children can be inspired to pursue careers in engineering, math and science.

Mike’s alert and enthusiastic mood lifted us out of our sleepiness as we set up for his interview. Mike has a wonderful outlook on life, and truly enjoys his role as business director for his institution. With our ½ hour interview completed, our gear stowed for the road trip to Cincinnati, it was time for a proper southern breakfast. So we followed Mike’s advice, and journeyed over to Ryder’s Gas Station and Restaurant.

Now, I know what you’re thinking; Gas and food? I got to remind you, we’re in West Virginia. The population is sparse and fancy fine dining is smirked at. But Ryders put to shame many of the restaurants we’ve dined at over the past few weeks. The food was hot, and excellently prepared. Our plates featured 2 large farm-fresh eggs cooked to order, 4 strips of REAL West Virginia Bacon, and a home-baked biscuit smothered with the best sausage gravy I’ve ever tasted. Now the food may give me a heart attack, but the bill didn’t. This wonderful fare cost us only $7.32. for both meals, including coffee. I walked away from Ryders full and inspired that there was still great values in our country. Now it was our intention to swing by the NRAO visitor center to grab some espresso to charge us down the road. It was to our disappointment that their espresso machine was broken. But it was with courage in our eyes that we felt we could travel 70 miles to the next major town where they surely would have a functioning espresso machine or at least gourmet coffee. Yes, we are addicts of the West Coast Coffee Craze, and the Corporate Offerings of Starbucks. Our addiction was only enhanced from our journeys through Europe and Chile, where great espresso was part of the daily life. Now in West Virginia, the love for espresso has not yet caught on. Our search for our fix would find us stomping through several diners and gas stations along our travel route until we came upon a Starbucks along a major freeway.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 08:38 AM | Permalink

Saturday morning finds us back on the road on our return visit to Green Bank, WV. The weather has turned to its seasonal norm, which required us to don our jackets just to cross the parking lot between the hotel and the car. This road trip, we began to see the colors that we had hoped for on our earlier trip that week. The crisp air, and fall smells and occasional Oktoberfest sign made us clearly aware we were in West Virginia in October.

Upon our late afternoon arrival we went to work to beat the sunset over the GBT. Anita took video of the orange reflecting from the sky onto the white structure of the telescope, as I sought out an appropriate location to shoot this beautiful beast of engineering. The sliver of the new moon and Jupiter indicated to me where I needed to be. My hope was to capture the Miliky Way in the left frame of my camera, the telescope at the right. As the evening progressed, the Milky Way would march across the sky behind the GBT.

This shot would be one of the more difficult shots I have taken, due to the fact that the GBT is lit at night, with aircraft lights and base lights, the issue being that the lights, although minimal, are brighter than the Milky Way. A series of test shots allowed me to quickly determine the ISO’s, f-stop, and timing to balance these issues. I am very pleased with the results. However the cooling night temperatures, the saturated air, soaked my camera with dew. Out of the 260 frames, about 180 of them are useable. There is equipment to prevent this which I will need to remember the next time I come out to the GBT. My lack of preparedness on this trip was caused by the fact that we’d been shooting on dry mountaintops of the southwest, Hawaii, and Chile. It never crossed my mind that I would encounter conditions that would leave dew on my camera. But I am very pleased at the frames I do have, as you see below.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 08:33 AM | Permalink

Our evening departure from NRAO at Green Bank, WV found us waking up in the town of Elkins, WV, about halfway to our destination of Wheeing WV to attend the Triple Conjunction Planetarium Convention. This convention consists of 3 annual planetarium association conventions that meet on a regular basis as a group. Hence, its name, Triple Conjunction.

The association are the Southeastern planetarium association, the Mid-Atlantic planetarium society, and the Great Lakes Planetarium Association. Here we caught up with our planetarium partners to begin putting the final touches on the planetarium script, and to discuss the technologies that we will debut in this internationally distributed planetarium show. It was also a chance for us to hear various speakers on astronomical subjects, and see planetarium shows.

The 2 days allowed us to focus on this key portion of our ambitious plan of tying the HD TV documentary to the planetarium and telescopic experience. We had a great time; it was nice to catch up with our partners, and meet new friends. We will make sure we attend the next Triple Conjunction Convention.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 08:31 AM | Permalink

Our morning began with the typical Starbucks caffeine adjustment before we headed west from Leesburg, VA to Green Bank, WV. The uncommonly warm weather in October did not encourage the trees to turn to the traditional fall colors. The hints of orange, yellow and red in the rolling hills seemed more like September, than the middle of October.

As we pulled off the 3 lane freeway onto a 2 lane highway, we quickly realized that we were in for a good dose of Americana, as we began the climb up into the Shenandoah mountains. Whitewashed fences, perfectly kept homes dotted the winding road, and announced the many small hamlets that we wound our way through, seeking our destination, the National Radio Observatory at Green Bank.

As we passed the road sign “3 miles to Green Bank” it seemed of little use as the Green Bank Telescope, the world’s largest steerable object, leaped from the valley floor, dwarfing the surrounding mountains, barns and grain silos. This structure stands as tall as the Washington Monument, and the dish is over 2 ½ acres in size. We would soon learn from our host, Michael Holstine, that this structure could easily hold the University of West Virginia’s football team. Complete awe was expressed by Anita and myself at this moment. Neither one of us expected the reaction that this modern wonder of the world had on us.

We quickly met up with our hosts, Mike and Dr. Butler Burton, who would both provide us with a wonderful education on the history of radio astronomy. This young science, only recently born in the 1940s, has revealed much of the universe unseen 350 years prior.

After our interview with Dr. Burton, we had the amazing opportunity, due to scheduled maintenance on the GBT to actually go onto the telescope. This journey to the prime focus cage required 2 elevator rides. The first was a mere 5 stories, as we transited onto a catwalk. Then onto another elevator that should probably be called a vinicular due to the diagonal ascent onto the prime focus cage. As the door was raised open, we stepped out onto the open-air grating. 425 feet above the ground seemed more like a thousand. Below stretched the acres of panels and engineering that made this one of the most sensitive telescopes in the world, and unquestionably the largest movable telescope in existence. Beyond that, we could easily see the other historical operating telescopes that dotted the small valley floor. Anita and I quickly went into action with our cameras, to capture the majesty and awe of this engineering marvel. Mike and Dr. Burton proceeded to tag team us with information about the telescope, ranging from the sensitivity of the panels, to the various detectors that could be used to sense the weak radio signals that have journeyed across the universe to be collected by this telescope.

Soon our lovely day was breeched by unseasonable thundershowers that closed in and canceled my anticipated evening of photographing the GBT. After a quick consultation with Mike and the offer to accommodate us Saturday night, we changed our schedule to return in hopes of clear weather. It is my goal to try to capture this incredible structure against the background of the Milky Way.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 08:01 AM | Permalink

Today started with coffee and a brief meeting with Steven Beckwith, one of our advisors on the production. We taped 5 interviews at the Hubble Telescope Space Science Institute: Adam Riess, a young astronomer who helped discover Dark Energy; Matt Mountain, the new director of the Hubble Telescope; Kathryn Flanagan, the new director of the James Webb Space Telescope, and her husband, Stephen Murray, one of the project scientists for Chandra, the X-Ray space telescope. Of course, we interviewed Steven Beckwith, Director Emeritus, for the Hubble. After a good long day of work, we took a short drive to Middleburg, VA to have our first meal of the day, dinner with my brother Robin. Tomorrow we will travel to the National Radio Observatory in Greenbank, West Virginia. We’re looking forward to viewing the fall foliage on the Shenandoah mountains.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:51 AM | Permalink

The combination of wine, pepperoni pizza and the anxiety of another 3 weeks of travel, produced a bellyful of acid, that crawled up my throat and woke me before the 2 a.m. alarm was scheduled to go off. The 3 hours of rest, if you could call it that, didn’t refresh me. It was far too little, leaving me groggier than before laying my head to the pillow. Anita and I had to catch a 6 am flight from Sacramento to Washington D.C. I pulled back the covers, disturbing the weiner dog at my feet, as she growled disapproval at my departure. I showered in a daze, not sure if I’d washed my hair once, or twice, brushed my teeth and dressed. After quickly packing my clothes that my daughter had ironed for me the night before, I went back into the bedroom and kissed my wife, and two children goodbye, sighing at the realization that I had only been home for 24 hours.

The journey between Chico and the Sacramento airport passed quietly as Anita and I struggled to reset our internal clocks to east coast time. The next 2 weeks will see us travel over much of the Midwest and the Washington D.C. area. First, we’re off to Baltimore, to visit the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institue. We will drive into the fall-foliaged West Virgina Hills, to the worlds’ largest steereable radio telescope. Then, we head to a planetarium conference in Wheeling. We will visit one of America’s oldest observatories, in Cincinnati, and interview a cosmologist in Cleveland. From there, we travel to the Windy City, to visit our friends at the Adler planetarium, and we’ll end up at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.

This begins what should be the last 4 weeks of travel for the production. Its also some of the most important travel we will do, as we’ll be conduction many of the key interviews for the program. These interviews will be conducted by Anita and myself, as Krista remains in Chico to begin the log and capture process of the footage and interviews we’ve got in the can. Scott has other obligations outside this production. So its just us, similar to our previous emmy-award winning Astronomy telecourse we produced in 2004.

Posted by 400 Years of the Telescope at 09:49 AM | Permalink