Pics from last weekend's TMT event at Palomar

Last Saturday at Palomar we had a talk by TMT scientist Tony Travouillon on the process of choosing the site for the Thirty Meter Telescope. About 90 people were able to attend.

That's Tony below near the end of his talk:

Photo by Richard Garcia

Left to right: TMT Project Manager Gary Sanders, TMT Telescope Research Engineer Warren Skidmore, Palomar's Scott Kardel, TMT Environment Control Scientist Tony Travouillon. Photo by Richard Garcia.

After the talk attendees were invited to a star party on the grounds of the observatory's outreach center under clear, dark skies.

Photo by Ben Orchard.

The people are blurred, while this PlaneWave Instruments telescope seems to be motionless in this time-exposure photo by Ben Orchard. In reality the telescope was moving too as it slowly tracked to counteract Earth's rotation.

Talk on the Thirty Meter Telescope at Palomar in June

Saturday, June 5 - Quest for the Best: Astronomy's Window on the Universe

Location may be important in real estate, but it's essential for astronomy, especially when the home you're building is for the world's most advanced and powerful telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). But how do you find the best and what makes one site better than another?

Join TMT scientist Tony Travouillon as he takes us to the high deserts of Chile, the mountains of Mexico, and 13,600 feet above the Pacific Ocean to the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii in search of the best possible window on the Universe. This quest for the stars was truly a 5-year mission in which Tony and his colleagues braved highly unusual and often harsh working conditions to gather as much data as possible about Earth's turbulent atmosphere so astronomers would be able to explore distant worlds, stars, and galaxies.


This event will be held June 5 at the Palomar Outreach Center. The evening begins at 5 p.m. with a tour of the grounds of the Palomar Observatory. The presentation begins at 7 p.m. Weather permitting, stay after the talk for a brief view of the night sky through some amateur telescopes. This is a free public lecture, but seating is limited. Call (760) 742-2131 or e-mail friendsofpalomar@astro.caltech.edu to make reservations.

TMT Goes to Hawai'i

It was announced yesterday that the Thirty Meter Telescope's board of directors has selected Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai'i as the site for the project.

Rendering of the TMT from Todd Mason Graphics

When completed in 2018 the TMT will have a primary mirror made up of 492 segments that will gather 36 times more light than Palomar's Hale Telescope.

I have not heard when the project is expected to begin construction, but they still need to obtain a Conservation District Use Permit from the Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Giant Telescopes in 3D

Todd Mason, of The Journey to Palomar fame, is at it again. A while ago I told you that on his new website, he has wonderful visualizations of what the next generation of giant telescopes will look like. He has just added a page of cool 3D images of these giant scopes: the Thirty Meter Telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (those are links to the individual project websites). He has also posted a 3D movie too. In the 3D movie you'll the Hale Telescope and the giants that are to come.

So grab your red/blue glasses and take a peak into the future. In 3D.

Visualizing the Future of Big Telescopes

You may remember Todd Mason from The Journey to Palomar. He and his wife Robin were the filmmakers who brought the career of George Ellery Hale to life in their fine documentary. If you saw the film you also saw some the 3-D graphics that Todd produced of the Hale Telescope.

While making the documentary Todd was also producing graphics for some of the big new telescopes that are now on the horizon. His new site Todd Mason Graphics has wonderful renderings of some future telescopes like the Giant Magellan Telescope, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and (our local favorite) the Thirty Meter Telescope.

Here is one of his of renderings of TMT:


There are plenty more on his new website. It is well worth the look if you are interested in any of these new telescopes.

If you have The Journey to Palomar DVD, you can see his work in the special features that describe some of these giant new telescopes.

The Birth of Palomar's 'Giant Eye'

Today Wired.com's This Day in Tech features the Hale Telescope's 200-inch mirror. There are a couple of mistakes in the story (there's no 100-inch telescope on Palomar), but it is still worth your time. While you are there you might also want to read the article future giant telescopes.

And Then There Were Two

The Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) is one step closer to reality. After years of study, the site selection team has narrowed the search to just two possible sites to build what will be come the world's largest telescope. They are Cerro Armazones in Chile's Atacama Desert, and Mauna Kea on Hawai'i Island.

Each site offers the excellent conditions needed for an observatory of this magnitude. What's required? A high elevation; clear skies; stable, non-turbulent air; and a dry atmosphere.

From yesterday's press release:

"The TMT is currently in the final stages of an $80 million design phase. The plan is to initiate construction in 2010 with first light in early 2018. This project is a partnership between the University of California, California Institute of Technology, and ACURA, an organization of Canadian universities. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has provided $50 million for the design phase of the project and has pledged an additional $200 million for the construction of the telescope, and Caltech and the University of California each will seek to raise matching funds of $50 million to bring the construction total to $300 million."

Stay tuned as the best is yet to come.

Monster Telescopes

Waiting in the mail yesterday was the April (!) issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. The cover features TMT in an article entitled "The New Monster Telescopes". Jonathan Lowe's article gives a great overview of the TMT, GMT and E-ELT projects.

Casey Reed provided some great illustrations to give a sense of scale for the projects, but what really caught my eye was this one (above), with the shadow of a monster (for the monster telescopes in the article) on a dome that very much reminds me of the dome for the 200-inch. :)

In the Shadow of a Giant

George Ellery Hale died 70 years ago today. From Ronald Florence's The Perfect Machine:

A few days prior to his death he felt well enough to be wheeled outside. He looked up at the sky and said, "It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining and they are working on Palomar."

While Hale missed seeing the completion of the mighty 200-inch telescope, his vision and determination made the telescope a reality. That's why it has carried his name since 1948.


Hale's shadow looms large even 70 years later. Modern-day astronomers are poised to begin a new project that would have made him proud, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).

The TMT will have almost 36 times the light-gathering power of the Hale Telescope and will push astronomy into a new era of giant telescopes. Design work and site selection are still underway, but big things are coming. As Hale said:

Make no small plans. Dream no small dreams.

There's nothing small about the TMT. Stay tuned.