Palomar Observatory

Being an astronomer is a lot of fun - especially when we get to do observations. I finally got to do my first observing run at Palomar last night (although I was just helping out - just a bit). For those who don't know what it's like, essentially you spend the night finding targets using a guide camera, and then taking exposures that will theoretically tell you something. We were able to observe from about 8:30 PM till about 5:30 AM, which meant I got to see sunset and sunrise from the top of the mountain.

When not observing, observers stay at the "Monastery" - the lodge for visiting observers. It was a lot of fun, and I'm hoping to get observation time again next semester, so this should hopefully be a semi-regular sort of thing for me.

I took some time to take plenty of photographs. To explain the P16/48/200 references, they refer to the diameter of the mirror in the telescope (in inches). The P48 is a wide-field telescope, the P60 (which I don't think I have any photos of) is primarily used to measure how much light (photometric), and the P200 (the one I was observing on) which is primarily used for spectra. The P200 (also called the Hale telescope) is the 19th largest currently constructed telescope in the world.