Take a 'journey' to North County's astronomical landmark
By: MARK RITTER - For the North County Times | ∞
Do you enjoy watching a cast of real-life eccentric characters drowning in high drama, a drama that spans decades of history, and all of which makes up a fascinating part of our American heritage? Then you may be in for a treat with a film being shown at this year's Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival ---- "The Journey to Palomar."
Many of us are at least aware of the great observatory on Palomar Mountain.
We've seen its image on water bottles among other places, and those of us who drive south on Interstate 15 through Murrieta and Temecula can see the magnificent dome on the distant mountain ahead of us.
There are no doubt some readers who may have made the pilgrimage to the top of that mountain to visit the observatory and get a peek at the famous Hale Telescope.
But too many of us locals who've seen the observatory don't fully appreciate its magnificent history. We see only some nondescript white object on the hill from the freeway. We might visit that massive dome, and peer through the glass at a giant steel contraption that vaguely resembles our idea of a telescope. Unimpressed, we walk away, almost disappointed.
This, to us science folk, is the equivalent of walking up to the Grand Canyon or Botticelli's Venus or the Brooklyn Bridge, shrugging the shoulders and nonchalantly moving on to the next point on the tour.
The history, beauty and grandeur of those works of art are profound. So, too, with the Palomar Observatory, the "Big Eye on the Hill."
It was the culminating jewel in the crown for a man named George Ellery Hale, the greatest telescope builder in the last hundred years.
Hale was convinced that building big, great scopes would show us things in the skies that we had never seen before, and more importantly, give us deep insights into how the universe got started, how it is now and where it is going.
This belief drove Hale to court the richest and often most eccentric people of the early 20th century ---- the Rockefellers and the Carnegies ---- in order to fund his vision for astronomy. His tenacity paid off and resulted first in the building of the Yerkes Observatory near Chicago. But for us in Southern California, his biggest accomplishments were yet to come.
It was he who put up the telescopes that put Southern California on the scientific map. He was the builder of the legendary Mt. Wilson Observatory in Pasadena and, of course, our own Palomar Observatory.
But all of the building and planning and begging and necessary development of brand-new technologies to make it all work took decades. And it sucked the life out of George Ellery Hale. Passing away in 1938, he didn't get to see the opening of Palomar, a momentous event that happened shortly after World War II.
The journey is a fascinating one, and I'm tempted to go on about how thousands of people came out to see the great mirror as it was moved across the nation. Or how it took 11 years just to polish that mirror to near perfection. Or about all the paradigm-shifting discoveries his telescopes made in cosmology.
If you get a chance to go to the Temecula Valley Film Festival to see "The Journey to Palomar," do so. It shows at 8 p.m. Sept. 13 and at 3:30 p.m. Sept. 15. Both showings are at the Movie Experience in Temecula. For more information, go to www.journeytopalomar.org or www.tviff.com.
Mark Ritter teaches astronomy in Temecula, and free podcasts of the "Skies Above" column can be found online at the iTunes Music Store.
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