Palomar in Science Fiction - Kronos

I just had the opportunity to watch the 1957 sci-fi movie Kronos and was pleased to learn that it is another of the many films that have featured Palomar Observatory.

In the movie the astronomers, working at LabCentral, are tracking a 4-mile wide "asteroid" known as M47 (not to be confused with the star cluster of the same name), which is apparently headed directly for, you guessed it, Earth.

Early on we see LabCentral from the outside, the dome look a bit like the 200-inch at Palomar, but not too much, as we are lacking the other buildings, the security guard station, etc.


Further observations and analysis determines that "asteroid" M47 will hit near New York and we get to see Palomar's 200-inch Hale Telescope.



Of course in the film it isn't Palomar, its LabCentral. Palomar does get named though as astronomer Dr. Gaskell mentions that he needs to phone professor Winter at Palomar to get verification of the position of M47.

The gang at LabCentral launch 3 nuclear missiles to destroy M47 in our upper atmosphere (that might even be worse than letting it hit), but alas the mysterious object absorbs the nuclear energy and lands in the Pacific Ocean off of the coast of Mexico (no where near New York).

What emerges is a giant, um robot, dubbed Kronos.


The still image doesn't do Kronos justice. Check out the trailer for the film embedded below and you'll see what I mean.




Yes, the movie is cheesy, but it is fun and surprisingly good in places.

p.s. This is my 500th post on this blog and I am wishing a Happy New Year to all the readers of Palomar Skies!

Palomar History Photo of the Week - December 28, 2009

2009, the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), is almost over. It has been a year-long celebration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first astronomical observations.

This week's Palomar History Photo of the Week celebrates the advances in telescopes with an IYA nod from Palomar to Galileo and Isaac Newton.

The photo shows one of the 200-inch opticians on the left looking through a replica of Galileo's telescope. The telescope is balanced on the shoulder of chief optician Marcus Brown. Behind them stands the completed 200-inch mirror in the optical shop at Caltech. In the mirror's center hole is an exact size replica (in artwork only) of Isaac Newton's first reflecting telescope.

The photo was likely taken during the fall of 1947. I would like to thank the Brown Family for their donation of this photo and other items to Palomar Observatory earlier this year.

This and That

Palomar Observatory is now back on its regular winter hours and open to visitors 9 am - 3 pm daily.


Astrobiology Magazine has named the discovery of exoplanet VB 10b, found using Palomar's Hale Telescope, as one of their Astrobiology Top 10 for the year.

Remember the 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts are continuing for 2010, but there still many open dates, even for the month of January.

Miller McCune magazine published an article on the dark-skies movement in Borrego Springs, CA: Stary, Stary Skies California desert town takes back the night, wins rare "Dark Sky" award.

Observatory Closed December 24 & 25

Remember Palomar Observatory is closed to the public December 24 & 25.

Palomar History Photo of the Week - December 21, 2009

The Winter Solstice occurs at 9:47 a.m. PST today here in the Northern Hemisphere, so this week's Palomar History Photo of the Week is a winter scene.


Here is a photo of the 200-inch telescope's dome taken during snow showers back in January 1938.

Lots of people like to visit Palomar around Christmas looking for snow. We do not have any on the ground now and there isn't any in the current forecast. As a reminder the observatory is closed December 24 & 25.

The Known Universe

The American Museum of Natural History astronomer Ben R. Oppenheimer (a member of the team that found the companion to the star Alcor) is part of the group that produced The Known Universe - a short film produced from real astronomical data that takes the viewer on an amazing trip.

From Dr. Oppenheimer's web site:

Every mountain, planet, satellite, star, galaxy, quasar and our cosmic horizon are represented accurately in both size and position relative to each other, based on our best scientific knowledge to date. No interpolations have been made, and only objects that have actually been observed are included. As a result, you will see vast regions of the universe where we have not yet been able to map the locations of particular types of objects, for various scientific reasons. These gaps are akin to the regions labeled 'terra incognita' in old globes and maps, before people had fully documented the geography of the world. This visualization starts from the mountains of Tibet and takes you swirling though our database out to the furthest reaches of the universe that are observable. As we travel away from Earth, the distance from home is represented in the length of time that light takes to travel the same distance.

The film is based on the Digital Universe Atlas, an on-going project of the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, which consists of the world's most complete and scientifically accurate four-dimensional map of the universe. This visualization, while demonstrating some of the wealth of the Digital Universe Atlas, features only a fraction of the database.

60-inch Telescope. Milky Way Galaxy.

Palomar Find Makes Discovery News Top 10 of the Decade

Discovery News has put out their list of the Top 10 Discoveries of the Decade and their list of Top 10 Space Discoveries of the Decade.

On both lists is the 2005 discovery of the world known as Eris. Knowledge of the existence of Eris, named after the Greek goddess of discord, helped to push Pluto out of the planetary roll call. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union officially proclaimed both Pluto and Eris to be part of a new, non-planet, classification known as "dwarf planets."

The discovery was made using the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope by the team of Mike Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory) and David Rabinowitz (Yale).

The discovery was made as a part of survey of the outer solar system using the Palomar QUEST camera and the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory.

Update:

HPWREN Helps Palomar Make the List of the Decade's Top 10 Discoveries

See also Ten Science Discoveries That Changed Our Decade and Top ten science stories of the decade from MSNBC.

Palomar History Photo of the Week - December 14, 2009

The men who built the dome of the 200-inch Hale Telescope

Group photos are great. This one comes from the collection of Earnest A. Whichelo, who back in the day was the manager of Consolidated Western Steel. CWS was the main contractor who built the dome for the 200-inch telescope. From the looks of the dome behind the group I am pretty sure that the photo was taken in 1938. Click on the photo and you can easily see each and every face of the crew that did the work.

The photo comes from a collection of photos donated to the observatory by Cindy Johnson, daughter of Earnest Whichelo. I posted another photo from this collection in a post over a year ago. Let me quote now what I said then:

We thank Ms. Johnson and the others over the years that have returned parts of Palomar Observatory's history back to us. Each photo is a treasure and reminds us of the tremendous work done by the people who made the Hale Telescope what it is.

Recently the observatory has been very fortunate as a many individuals have been coming forth with donations of photos and other items from our past. We are in the process of scanning and will share more of these here on the blog and eventually on the observatory's main website and out for people to see when the visit the observatory in person.

Outdoor Lighting at Night

As I am sure most of my readers know, the issue of light pollution and good outdoor lighting is very important to Palomar Observatory.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a demonstration of streetlights by Visionaire Lighting. They showed off a variety of products including an amber LED streetlight.

As you can see the light from the amber LED looks a lot like the light from a low-pressure sodium light. Looks can be deceiving The key to understanding how such a lamp might affect astronomy is to have a more detailed look at the mix of colors that it is composed of. This is done by breaking the light into its component colors - its spectrum. Here is what the spectrum looks like for the amber LED:

The light source is on the right and the spectrum is on the left. Compare the spectrum of the amber LED with a white LED streetlight (below):


The white light offers up a full rainbow of colors (one of the reasons some people like it so much), yet it presents some problems for astronomy. Partly, it is rich in blue light which contributes to Rayleigh scattering, the phenomenon that makes the sky blue in the daytime. Blue light from streetlights disproportionally makes the sky brighter at night too.

One way to limit the amount of blue in the light is to use a narrow band light source such as low-pressure sodium or perhaps the amber LED. Another way that is not as effective for astronomy is to use a light of a low color temperature. Have a look at the two LED lights below and you'll notice that the higher color temperature lamp on the left looks blue and the lower temperature one on the right looks yellow.


The yellowish light on the right is made up of a different mix of light. It has less blue in it. While this is not as attractive astronomically as a narrow-band light source, the lower color temperature lamp will produce less skyglow than the higher temperature one (if all other things like level of illumination and light fixtures are equal).

But even limiting the color temperature does not help enough to make a streetlight attractive to astronomers. A lower color temperature light source still has a broad range of colors that fills up the spectrum. This full spectrum is a problem because it doesn't give astronomers any "window" to look through. The graphic below gives an idea of the concept:

Credit: Bright Stars Wildomar

So what is the point of all this? The observatory's position on outdoor lighting is still the same.

Cities, businesses and homeowners should:

Use only as much light as is needed for a task. Do not over-light.

Shield lights to prevent direct upward illumination.

Turn off lights when they are not needed.

Use low-pressure sodium lights to the greatest degree possible.

Anyone that follows the first three points will save money and help to preserve dark skies. To the final point it may be time to modify it to read "Use low-pressure sodium or other monochromatic lights to the greatest degree possible." We may eventually have streetlights that can mimic the astronomical advantages of low-pressure sodium lights. Visionaire's amber LED is the only one that I have had the chance to see in person. There are other companies and other ideas that might prove to be good choices for astronomy.

Thanks to Visionaire for showing off some of their products (more later) to the San Diego chapter of the International Dark-sky Association and to Oceanside Photo & Telescope for hosting the lighting demonstration in their parking lot.