Observation

Checking an item off a childhood bucket list

I’m working on a longer post, but it’s not quite finished, so here’s an appetizer for you.

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One of my clearest childhood memories was wanting to see the 200-inch Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory.

I had a childhood fascination with astronomy. As related in my contribution to

Jane Ratcliffe

's Beyond series, earlier this year, at eight or nine years old, I read every book on astronomy in the children's section of our local public library.

A favorite was The Solar System by eccentric British astronomer Patrick Moore. We were only allowed one non-fiction book at a time. The day we returned one, I'd hide from my mother at the back of the library or pretend to look at other books until the librarian put it back on the shelf, then borrow it again. The librarians never called me out on it.

Jane Ratcliffe
Justice, Fairness, Kindness, and Water

Space exploration back then was a strictly terrestrial affair, and the main instrument the telescope. The largest of these was the Hale 200-inch reflector at the Palomar Mountain Observatory in San Diego County, California, which first saw light in 1948, three years before your author. The eccentric astronomer gushed about that telescope. Astronomers from around the world waited years just to get an hour of time working with it. To a kid growing up in post-war England, Palomar may as well have been the moon. Nevertheless, I made up my mind that I would see it one day. My first bucket list item, before the term existed.

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Have you completed a childhood bucket list item? Please tell us about it in the comments!

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It only took sixty-five years, but at last I had a chance to check it off. My wife Brenda, just two days after her Ironman 70.3, had the opportunity to ride her bicycle with a group of friends the 44 miles and 5,000 feet up Palomar Mountain, finishing just 5 miles from the observatory. I met them at the top. While the rest rode back down, she and I were able to visit the observatory before continuing to Coachella Valley.

The shining white dome is visible from several miles away and up-close looks even more imposing and beautiful than in the black and white photos of my childhood.

Entry is free, and the observatory is open most days. One inside the building, a staircase with the original Art Deco handrails leads up to the visitors’ gallery at the base of the dome. Visitors are kept behind glass to protect the delicate mirror surface and other optics.

It’s actually easier to see it in this scale model:

and this annotated photograph:

There's an elegance and beauty to the telescope that matches its significance in science. It is still doing important work today, seventy-seven years after it first saw light. Much of that work is automated; a continuous process of scanning the northern hemisphere and cataloging all the visible celestial objects.

There, I saw it, and I’m happy I did. On to Coachella Valley, where we’ll pick up the thread in the next post.

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