Mirror

Mt. Hopkins, AZ (Dec 15, 2005)

I am back from my observing run in Arizona. I got mostly cloudy weather, but at least I got a few rapid snapshots, between the clouds, of my target. They will help me to prepare the next time, hoping for better luck. It was nice to have a break from Boston’s cold, though, even if up on the mountain was chilly during the night.

One of the times I went outside to check if the clouds were finally going away, I had this view of the open dome, with the telescope illuminated by the moon. You can see how the sky was luminous, in the background, because of the moonlight reflected by the clouds cover... not exactly astronomy-quality dark skys. The telescope is the new MMT, with its 6.5 meter diameter primary mirror. New because in its previous incarnation it consisted of 6 smaller mirrors mounted together on a single mount (MMT actually stands for “Multiple Mirror Telescope”). A few years ago the old mount was removed, and the telescope substituted with a single giant mirror, barely fitting inside the old dome. Like a model ship in the bottle.