The Lick Observatory U.C.S.C. on Mount Hamilton by John Fletcher. F.R.A.S. UK.
02 October - 23 October - 2005
On arrival at Jan Jose airport I was met by friend and fellow Mars observer Bill Sheehan who invited me to join
him in the observations of Mars whilst at Sir Patrick Moore's home in Selsey. UK over a year ago. Bill is a Mars
historian, author of two books on the red planet: "The Planet Mars" and "Mars".
We started our 22 mile accent up the long winding Mount Hamilton Road with its 365 twisting and weaving bends and
finally after about 30 minutes reached the summit.
There stood many large and smaller observatory domes.
The main building has two observatories. The largest one that houses the famous Lick 36 inch refractor and the
dome of the 40 inch Nickel reflector at the other end. Above the entrance hallway to wonderful displays and a fine
gift shop is written Lick Observatory U.C.S.C. Just inside is a memorial plaque and a bust of James Lick. He was
the founder of the Lick Observatory. It is interesting to note that the body of James Lick August 1796 - 1876 rests
in peace below the great 36-inch refractor. The memorial plate can be viewed below the observatory floor.
On the first night I was introduced to long time Lick veteran astronomerTony Misch. Tony has been the support astronomer
at Lick Observatory for about two decades. He has had formal training as an artist. This inspired him to draw Mars
at the telescope what he saw and not what he knew which is something I agree with entirely.
Tony very patiently guided me through a brief training how to use the huge refractor. There is a very strict sequence
of preparation for the observing. Basically you never uncover the lens before the dome is open, or if the humidity
is over 85% and keep an eye on the humidity and the skies outside. On just one night out of twenty we could not
observe all night as a cloud bank was seen to be rising rapidly up the mountain sides at about 01:30hrs. Within
about 30 minutes of closing things down the mountain felt very damp and was misty with clouds.
The big refractor is literally pushed by hand around the sky and so the whole of the floor has to be adjusted with
great care at the same time with hand paddles. One must not loose the end of the telescope in height or allow it
to crash into the floor at the eyepiece end. Even a chair below the eyepiece end could cause damage if it were
to be overlooked when moving the floor up, or telescope end down. After about three hours confidence set in and
from then on I felt at home using it. It was fitted with large diameter eyepieces various and also a built in set
of filters on a large sliding rack.
Later in the week Remington Stone, a research astronomer and the director of all operations on Mount Hamilton joined
us and he was with us most nights to help us along with Tony throughout our stay. Rem has been associated with
the Lick Observatory for nearly 40 years and has great experience and knowledge of the way things work and run.
Also joining us in the observing of Mars was perfectionist, artist and photographer Laurie Hatch. The photographs
of the Lick Observatory and all its surroundings are to be seen all round the on the displays in the observers
gallery.
It was a fantastic privilege and honour to be able to observe with this great instrument. The skies of Mount Hamilton
are extremely dark and the air is steady. We used the 36-inch refractor almost every single night, except a full
8 hour observing run of deep sky objects, and Mars when Bill Sheehan and I used the 60 inch at Mount Wilson some
350 miles away. I will give a mention of Mount Wilson at a later date.
At the controls of the Lick 36inch refractor.
The views Bill and I had of Mars and the many drawings we did compared well with Barnards using the 36 inch 57
feet long refractor some 100 years ago to the date. I had a fine opportunity to see some of the historic work of
the astronomers, E E Barnard (1857 - 1923) and Robert JuliusTrumpler (1886 - 1956). Their original drawings made
using this great refractor were most impressive.
My own drawings can be viewed on my homepages at: -
< http://www.jfmto.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mars2005.htm
>
It takes around 40 full days for a complete rotation of Mars as seen from Earth. By looking at my observations
you will see most of the main features and shadings.
The dust storm around the Valles Marineris I indicated by pencil mottling was very easily recognised.
The dark feature Margaritifer was well defined as was the Oxia Pallas which on several nights around the 20th October
appeared hook shaped towards the East wrapping itself around the Sinus Meridiani. To The North the Niliacus Lacus
was spotted South of Mare Acidalium.
Around the 13th of October west of Mare Erythraeum the Solis Lacus region showed Nectar and Foelix easily. The
darkest feature nearby was Phoenicis L. The Tithonius L was seen curving under Noctis and well North Mare Acidalium
was seen well every night.
The average magnifications throughout the three weeks was around x 500.
On the night of the 23rd the main feature of interest was the Sinus Sabaeus. At the western end of this the Sinus
Meridiani was dark and displayed the two north pointing features in the Fasticium Aryn region with to the East
a bright bare area called Edom. The Pandorae Fr region seemed darker and appeared to hook round towards Sinus Meridiani
and spread into the west edge of the Deucalionis region.
Well I could go on and on as so much was seen but I invite you to look at the drawing on the link and judge for
yourselves. I am not a great artist but what I saw with my own eyes is what is on the drawings, and that is important
to me. Some observations were done using a red filter and others were done in white light. My images can be zoomed
in so as to view the Central Meridian times and the dates and times. I included the EST time in California on some
and the Universal time which was 7 seven hours ahead. So 00:00hrs in CA was 07:00UT.
One evening I left the great refractor after an invite by Bernie Walp a resident night assistant to see the 120-inch
Shane reflector, Mount Hamilton's largest telescope in operation.
I joined night assistant Kriss Miller in the observing control rooms, which were a mass of computers. On the second
week they fitted to the 120-inch an IR camera from the Hercules airborne observatory that required tests with newly
fitted software.
I was in the control room with them. It is to go into a two-metre telescope and fitted into a new airborne observatory
looking out of a huge hole in a re-fitted 737 airliner. They have a 20-watt sodium laser guider at the 120-inch,
which they explained to me puts a false guide star near the target object at 90 kilometres above the Earths surface.
At this altitude is a thin layer of sodium atoms left by meteors that constantly burn up as they enter our atmosphere.
Basically if they are illuminated they can be finely tuned and directed back to the telescope. This synchronised
with the new adaptive optics on the 120-inch keeps the stars still and accurate to fractions of an arc second.
The guide star field is 2 x 2 minutes of arc. A visual look out tower is in operation for overhead aircraft as
the laser is so bright it can be easily seen when stood outside as an extremely thin bright orange beam. Mount
Hamilton were the pioneers to this type of research and now the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea and the 8 metre VLT
in Chile and many other observatories around the World use, or are planning to use the Laser guiding technology.
An interesting thing was seen in the control room. The importance of watching the weather is a top issue. I noticed
that one of the many monitors in the control room of the Shane had a Weatherlink display the same as my online
Pro station back home in UK. The night assistant brought up mine alongside it and we made some comparisons.
Boy what a difference. This was what we read out.
Their Barometric pressure was a dead straight line over 14 days. In other word a very stable pressure all the time.
Mine was up and down peaks and throughs every day here in UK.
Humidity. 40% over 14 days rising to 46% on two days.
75 to 93% every day here in UK.
Rainfall zero for the last 39 days.
UK...........................……………...I don't need to say anything. As soon as I got off the plane at Heathrow it
was raining here.
October outside temperatures. 74 to 84 degrees F. Not much variation between day and night.
Here 39 to 54 degrees F. altering and quite different every day and night all the time.
Also clouds if any on my stay were below the summit at 4500 feet all the time. On nights that they hide the city
of San Jose the skies even better.
For me the naked eye magnitude was 6.0v. M13 in Hercules was as easy to see as the great Orion nebula on our very clearest and best nights in UK. M31 was a bright galaxy with the eyes and very large indeed. It was quite stunning to see something so bright at a distance of 2.8 million light years away.
The Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope
On another night I also met up with Alex Filippenko at lunch at dinner in the astronomers dining room. He knew
of English amateur astronomer Mr Tom Boles (BAA) and spoke very highly of him. He was very kind to me and invited
me to the robotic scope, which was in full operation all night long. It images 1250 galaxies every other night
for around 312 clear nights per year. The observatory is unmanned. The dome opens and shuts each night automatically
after assessing dew and cloud cover. It tracks with the telescope all night long until twilight and then closes
everything down automatically. It sends the data off to Berkeley and it is checked in super quick time. I watched
it working away in the dark as we chatted for over two hours. Alex told me that every 40 minutes the telescope
takes 15 x five-second stellar photographs in succession with micro adjustments to the focal length and it works
out which one is in best focus. It then adjusts the mirror for perfect focus. He was so accommodating and informative
and talked about his ever-enthusiastic project that he had personally worked on for years. Now finally now it has
become a great success. He averages about 80 supernova discoveries every year.
Pictures of the 120-inch Shane Observatory and the 30-inch KAIT reflector.
Most nights are clear at the Mount Hamilton and as an example in my three week stay the telescopes were all running
every night except two when the moisture or dew was over 85% from ocean rising air currents causing misty precipitation.
Some days and some nights the clouds if any cloaked San Jose but did not reach the altitudes of the telescopes.
I also spent time with another astronomer using a 36-inch Crossley reflector that is the oldest telescope on the
mountain. The research astronomer Bob was searching for extra solar planets. Every night 100 CCD images of a same
field are taken between dusk and dawn. Each CCD wide 40' x 40' minute of arc field has thousand of star images
on them. Each star is checked for a new planet signature every day.
Incidentally British amateur astronomer Andrew Ainsie Common built this telescope in England in 1976. It was designed
by English telescope maker G. Calver.
Crossley donated the telescope to the clear mountain top site of Mount Hamilton at the Lick observatory and it
was installed in 1896. The polar axis floated in Mercury to reduce friction and this method was later applied to
the 60-inch and the 100-inch Hooker reflectors on Mount Wilson. Needless to say this had some very unhealthy effects
on some users of these great telescopes over periods of time. It is interesting to note that the photographs and
studies made using the Crossley reflector contributed to studies confirming the expansion of the universe.
By John R Fletcher.
Mount Tuffley Observatory.
MPC Code J93. UK.