400 Years of the Telescope

After dinner at a Mexican place Wednesday night, we sacked out until the next morning, where we had a bit of time to organize our gear, charge our batteries, and pour a bunch of Starbucks into our guts. Kris manned the helm up one of the most twisted roads in Arizona, the one that leads to the Large Binocular Telescope. We stopped on the way up to have a picnic lunch at a sunlit forested area, with none other than the cheeriest Father in Astronomy, Dr. Chris Corbally, of the Vatican Observatory; he exudes such pure sweetness that the bees pestered him relentlessly as he ate his tuna sandwich. When we finally made it up the hill, it was a miracle I didn’t toss my lunch immediately upon the spinning ground. But I was eager to use the energy to gather b-roll of the biggest pair o’ binocs ever invented. Two 8.4 meter mirrors side by side stare out into the heavens when that thing opens up. It’s way bigger than the word “large’ can describe. Inside, we were helped by Doug Officer, a congenial fellow with the clout to put us anywhere we wanted to be. We sited a few different angles inside the dome, set up the Plan-O-Cam, and conferred with the Telescope operator where we wanted the shutter to aim for the exterior/interior opening shot. I was the designated exterior shooter, which meant up I was placed on the roof of the Vatican Observatory, my camera focused on the LBT dome.

It was cold at 10 thousand feet altitude, and an icy wind chilled my bones. The orange sunset reflected back against a deep blue sky, and Dr. Corbally had to prod me off the roof when 30 minutes had flown by. I was frozen, and happy, and craving some hot fried food and cold beers when we finally got back into town 2 hours later.

Then we crashed at the home of Kris’ kin, Dean and Donna, two of the nicest Koenigs on the planet; we slept for a few hours, and got up early to hit the road home. We made it home by 2 am, and have one more road trip to go: The Mt. Wilson Observatory, and the strangely intriguing Allen Telescope Array, with the even more intriguing and strange Dr. Seth Shostak, along with the celebrity-status radio astronomer, Dr. Jill Tarter. Until next time…