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.