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.