The blonde woman toward the back, Phyllis, organizes this twice a year. I just happened to be here on the right day. One of the musicians was local celebrity Bake Turner, who played on the Super Bowl III winning Jets with Joe Namath back in the day.
This was made by Observatory staff fairly recently in a retro style. It’s great. Totally belongs in Rotwang’s lab.
This one is much older—construction was begun in 1939—and to my eyes, more interesting. Also interesting is the fact that despite having less light-gathering ability, this produces better images than the bigger one
Light is directed here from the telescope via a complicated optical path called a Coudé focus. The room is painted all black, and has various diffraction gratings, mirrors, and a very expensive CCD cooled by liquid nitrogen
One of the cats my hosts at the Observatory, John and Deb, were fostering. Mittens slept right next to my head, purring. Deb urged me to adopt him. I protested I didn’t have room to carry him. She countered "We deliver." Tempting
