Astronomy Squee!
Feb. 28th, 2006 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneThere's more than one observatory in our area. There's my wife's observatory, Apache Point Observatory (APO), there's the National Solar Observatory (NSO) just down the road from Apache Point, and there was a liquid mirror telescope (LMT) just three miles outside of Cloudcroft. Apache Point is the only traditional observatories, i.e. recognizable telescopes and operating at night.
The LMT is really cool technology. It doesn't have a conventional glass mirror, instead they have a pool of liquid mercury that they spin, and the spinning motion bows the mercury pool into an effective mirror. They've worked with other chemicals to see what other characteristics might manifest. The only problem with this (aside from massive amounts of mercury being present) is that it can basically only point straight up. It can deviate a few degrees, but really not too much.
The LMT facility was shut down in 2002, the LMT was moved to another facility and other scientific instruments went elsewhere. When it was in operation, it was used to monitor and catalog orbital debris, there's an unbelievable amount of crap in orbit and it's important to know where it is.
Of course there's more to the story, or I wouldn't have much of a post!
Today I didn't have a lot going on (though I should be working on my algebra homework) and I needed to finish a roll of film, so I locked down the location through a mapping program on my laptop that I use to program my GPS receiver and I drove out to it. It was easy enough to find, Russet had pointed out the access road on a trip to Ruidoso. I was more than a bit surprised to find the front gate open and vehicles visible!
There wasn't anyone visible to ask permission, and there were no signs posted, so I walked in and started shooting with my digital. I walked up to the main building as a semi left, I assumed maybe they were removing more stuff from it. As I walked around the building checking it out, someone came out and we did some talking.
He was the site manager, and it turned out that I was trespassing. It was still government property, and technically I shouldn't be there. But the interesting thing is that the site is being overhauled and will be reopening in six months! They're installing a 1-meter high-resolution telescope, though I'm not sure if they're going to do general astronomy or will be continuing their orbital debris observations.
I told the guy that my wife worked at APO running the 3.5-meter and I just wanted to see the building. He was also concerned from a liability standpoint since the area was technically a construction zone. Once I told him that my dad was an industrial plumber and I knew my way around a construction site, he was sufficiently mollified and said I could wander around the grounds as long as I was careful. He said he couldn't let me inside as there were exposed 480 volt electrical mains.
So in six months, or less if I can arrange it, I'll get to see the interior!
Definite geek SQUEE!
I have thirteen images that I shot, I'll get 'em posted later. They're probably not too interesting to anyone except for astronomy geeks.
The LMT is really cool technology. It doesn't have a conventional glass mirror, instead they have a pool of liquid mercury that they spin, and the spinning motion bows the mercury pool into an effective mirror. They've worked with other chemicals to see what other characteristics might manifest. The only problem with this (aside from massive amounts of mercury being present) is that it can basically only point straight up. It can deviate a few degrees, but really not too much.
The LMT facility was shut down in 2002, the LMT was moved to another facility and other scientific instruments went elsewhere. When it was in operation, it was used to monitor and catalog orbital debris, there's an unbelievable amount of crap in orbit and it's important to know where it is.
Of course there's more to the story, or I wouldn't have much of a post!
Today I didn't have a lot going on (though I should be working on my algebra homework) and I needed to finish a roll of film, so I locked down the location through a mapping program on my laptop that I use to program my GPS receiver and I drove out to it. It was easy enough to find, Russet had pointed out the access road on a trip to Ruidoso. I was more than a bit surprised to find the front gate open and vehicles visible!
There wasn't anyone visible to ask permission, and there were no signs posted, so I walked in and started shooting with my digital. I walked up to the main building as a semi left, I assumed maybe they were removing more stuff from it. As I walked around the building checking it out, someone came out and we did some talking.
He was the site manager, and it turned out that I was trespassing. It was still government property, and technically I shouldn't be there. But the interesting thing is that the site is being overhauled and will be reopening in six months! They're installing a 1-meter high-resolution telescope, though I'm not sure if they're going to do general astronomy or will be continuing their orbital debris observations.
I told the guy that my wife worked at APO running the 3.5-meter and I just wanted to see the building. He was also concerned from a liability standpoint since the area was technically a construction zone. Once I told him that my dad was an industrial plumber and I knew my way around a construction site, he was sufficiently mollified and said I could wander around the grounds as long as I was careful. He said he couldn't let me inside as there were exposed 480 volt electrical mains.
So in six months, or less if I can arrange it, I'll get to see the interior!
Definite geek SQUEE!
I have thirteen images that I shot, I'll get 'em posted later. They're probably not too interesting to anyone except for astronomy geeks.
