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NAU Lumberjack features Lowell Observatory

On NAU’s JackCentral.com there’s a great new feature story by Sarah Pickering, “Lowell Observatory welcomes its one millionth visitor.” The accompanying photo by The Lumberjack’s Mike Thompson really captures one of our most popular regular programs for visitors — guided stargazing in the plaza in front of the historic Slipher Rotunda. Also pictured is NAU student and Lowell volunteer Kendra Kellogg, one of our many volunteers and docents that add to our visitor experience and greatly assist the Observatory in our efforts to offer the wide variety of programs, special events, tours, McAllister Space Theatre shows, and more.

see also:

The Discovery Channel Telescope First Light Challenge

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About.com: a visit to Lowell Observatory & Flagstaff

We are happy to report that we recently got a great feature story on About.com — “Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona: Where Astronomy and History Meet.” A special thanks to author Marilyn Crain who also recently made note of our 1 million visitor milestone in her blog, The Coconino Chronicles. Thanks again, Marilyn!

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Lowell Observatory: The Pot at the End of the Rainbow

These pictures of a double rainbow were taken at the Observatory yesterday (September 9).

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A Million and Counting!

On a sunny day in 1994, television crews, dignitaries, and interested community members of all ages gathered atop a mesa just west of downtown Flagstaff. The reason for this congregation was the dedication of Lowell Observatory’s new Steele Visitor Center.

Since that opening day, visitors have flocked to the Observatory to peer through telescopes, gaze at Flagstaff’s dark skies, tour the historic facilities, and learn about the cutting-edge research carried out by Lowell’s score of astronomers.

In its 15 years of operation, the Steele Visitor Center has been the host site for countless public and school programs, science conferences, and numerous dignitaries, including First Lady Hillary Clinton and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.  We are now celebrating another milestone for the Steele Visitor Center ─ 1 million visitors since opening in 1994.

We want to say thank you to the tourists, supporters, and partners who helped us reach this level of success. On August 28, all visitors to both our day and evening programs will be admitted for half price. Everyone arriving between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. will receive a raffle ticket, and a prize drawing will be held at 3:30 in the Visitor Center (must be present to win). Prizes include a SkyQuest Dobsonian telescope, a ride in Percival Lowell’s 1911 Stevens-Duryea, one-year membership in the Friends of Lowell, shirts, books, and more.

Special daytime programming includes science demonstrations, telescope viewing of the sun, Space Theatre programs, and tours that include stops at the Pluto Telescope dome.

Local dignitaries will also be on hand at 3:30 to help celebrate.

The Steele Visitor Center is named in honor of Horace and Ethel Steele. Horace Steele was successful in the petroleum and trucking industry, and his financial resources were the basis of the Steele Foundation, a Phoenix-based philanthropic organization which provided significant financial support for the construction of the Steele Visitor Center. Other major funding came from the National Science Foundation, NSF. NSF is a federal, independent agency created by Congress in 1950 with a mission including support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering.

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Back online

We have likely been inaccessible for much of today — we had a Web server meltdown and had to perform some radical surgery.  All the site databases are back on line, but looking over the blog, it looks like we lost a few comments.   Regarding the most recent one about a bright event in the sky in March 1986, well, I was studying for finals in college and not looking at the sky, so I don’t know!  Most likely it was a bright meteor; they can even break up in flashy fashion if they incoming particle is big enough.  If some of anyone else’s comments got trashed in the rebuild, sorry about that; we’re not sure why they disappeared and we don’t see an easy way to get them back.  In any event, we’re alive and well again.

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Observations begin anew!

After a 7-month hiatus during which we rebuilt our entire spectrograph system downstream of the cameras, we are again operational and observing the long-term behavior of the Sun and its closest stellar cousins.

In January 2008, the old camera electronics on the Solar-Stellar Spectrograph died after 17 years of hard service.  Fortunately, we had budgeted in our new grant to replace the cameras and control computer anyway, and funding for that grant, provided by the National Science Foundation, also began in January.  Since then, we have planned our new system, ordered cameras, had them delivered, rebuilt the whole system downstream of the focusing lenses, troubleshot things, and integrated the new data format into our software…and this week, we began observations of the Sun and stars once again. Not a moment too soon, either, as solar cycle 24 slowly lurches into gear. This success came about primarily thanks to a lot of hard work by Lowell Director of Technical Services Ralph Nye, who put in many hours getting us reassembled, with additional help on the optical setup by Instrument Scientist Ted Dunham.  Kudos and many thanks to both of them!

In one of the upgrade’s most dramatic moments, Ralph got this picture of Wes Lockwood and me getting ready to fire up the system and take the first new spectrum this past Wednesday.  Everything worked perfectly, and we are now getting ready for a 17-night observing run in August to catch up on all our favorite stars.

At left is a picture only an astronomer could love: a data frame with our spiffy new spectrum of the Sun, taken earlier today. By analyzing the amount of light in the dark spectral lines you can see throughout the image (they’re the little back lines cutting through the bright white swaths of the spectrum), we can quantify the activity level of the Sun and stars (among many other things), and compare the behavior of Sun-like stars to that of the Sun itself. The stars, in effect, give us a window into the Sun’s past, including interesting periods like the Maunder Minimum.

You can read all about the SSS program at our Web site. We’re also going to move our research posts to a separate blog over at that site, retaining the main Lowell blog for general Observatory news. Stay tuned for the new blog next week sometime.

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What Scientists Actually Do

On August 3, scientist and author Joan Horvath will highlight an evening of activities at Lowell as part of the Dog Days Star Fest. At 7 PM, Horvath will give a fun presentation about her new book, What Scientists Actually Do (pictured here).

“With the passionate, conversational tone of a knowledgeable and fun-loving good friend over coffee, rocket scientist Joan Horvath describes what scientists, engineers and mathematicians do and why they do it.”

After the program, Horvath will sign copies of her book. In addition to this presentation that will be great for the whole family, numerous telescopes will be set up throughout the Lowell campus (weather permitting) and other indoor activities will be available. Hours for this special evening are 5:30 PM - 10 PM. Regular admission rates apply ($6 per adult, $3 per youth ages 5-17, $5 per senior/AAA/college student; members are admitted free.)

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DCT Secondary Mirror

Here are some recent pictures of the secondary mirror for the Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory. The mirror is currently at Optical Surface Technologies in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are in the process of a preliminary polish prior to shipping the mirror to another facility for lightweighting.

The 1.4-meter secondary mirror blank was fabricated by Corning, Inc. and is made of fused silica. In the second picture, the mirror has been cleaned off, showing the polished surface.

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The Wall Street Journal and Dark Skies

In Friday’s (July 25) edition of The Wall Street Journal, “Science Journal” columnist Robert Lee Hotz concisely covers the variety of benefits of directing nighttime lighting down, where it is needed, rather than casting light upward, where it is not needed.  The article “It’s All About the Lighting” is accessible online, and includes a discussion forum  where readers can leave comments.  I was pleased to see mention, though brief, of Flagstaff, Ariz. in the second to last paragraph.

It is encouraging to see a topic that we’ve discussed at a statewide level (see the guest editorial in the Arizona Republic by Lowell Observatory Director Bob Millis), receive a worldwide audience through The Wall Street Journal. 

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Flagstaff — Get Celestial with Sunset Magazine

Get ahold of a copy of the August issue of Sunset, Living in the West! In there is a sidebar story on pg. 36 about Lowell Observatory. Under a dramatic photo of one of Lowell’s Anderson Mesa research telescopes, the 42″ John Hall Telescope, taken by Tony Hallas, the article says:

…Go celebrate at Lowell, one of the best places in the nation to enjoy the night sky. Visit on August 11 for the famous Perseid meteor shower; you’ll lose count of the shooting stars. And you can get stellar views of the cosmos anytime through Lowell’s 24-inch-diameter telescope.

Many thanks to Jessica Stephens at the City of Flagstaff’s Convention and Visitors Bureau for this successful pitch of a story idea to Sunset and also to all the talented Sunset staff who worked on the mini feature.

Posted in Lowell in the News, Lowell outreach, Pluto, Stargazing | No Comments »