Found a video of the mirror cleaning process done by the
team at the Palomar observatory from 2006.
As a supplement to the tour, I decided to look around to see what discoveries were
made using the instruments at the Palomar observatory, and also to check what
ongoing projects are being run through there.
The first methane Brown Dwarf was discovered Gliese 229B in 1995. It
has discovered many of the dwarf planets on the outskirts of our solar system
including Eris (which triggered events that lead to a new classification of
planets known as dwarf planets of which Pluto was placed into), Sedna, Quaoar,
and Orcus as well as around 40 other Kuiper belt objects. Discovery of comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1993 which was the first celestial object that we were able
to observe impacting another body in space that happened to be the atmosphere
of a Jupiter. There have been many discovered supernova in distant galaxies
here, and Fritz Zwicky gathered the first evidence of dark matter in the 1930’s.
From 1949-1958, the Palomar observatory began with their
first major project to make a comprehensive photographic survey of the night
sky. This project was known as POSS-I (Palomar Observatory Sky Survey). Here
they scanned the night sky from a declination of +90 degrees to -27 degrees for
all Right Ascensions. With help from
partners in Australia and Chile, they were able to extend the declination to -45 degrees through two extension projects.
This survey gave the first catalog of galaxy clusters which allowed for the
structure of the Universe to be mapped. Merging galaxies, new globular
clusters, and neighboring dwarf galaxies to our own were discovered along with
the first optical identification of quasars.
Other projects followed this including a search for
supernova from 1959-1975 that resulted in 183 exploding stars as well as others
found in the plates created from the POSS-I. A series of surveys from 1960-1977
were also made that listed numerous asteroids within our solar system known as
the Leiden survey. This resulted in the discovery of over 6000 asteroids
spanning 35 nights of study. From 1962-1971, there was the proper motion survey
that was conducted to determine the motion of stars that were discovered close
to our own.
In 1985, the second night sky survey began (POSS-II) and
lasted until the year 2000. It used advances in technology to capture the night
sky in 3 different spectrums (blue, red, and infrared) and worked to move sky
surveys into the digital age. Over 1billion stars, 50 million galaxies, 100
supernovae, dozens of asteroids and comets, over 100 quasars, and 20 thousand
galaxy clusters were discovered through this second survey.
From 2001-2003, JPL worked on the Near Earth Asteroid
Tracker Survey that resulted in the discovery of 189 asteroids near Earth and
20 comets.
Currently, the observatory is still in use and has not lost
its value in the Astronomy community. It is currently in projects to observe
gamma-ray bursts, exoplanets, quasars, blackholes, weather patterns on Saturn’s
moon Titan, near-Earth asteroids, Kuiper belt objects, and a new sky survey
known as Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), plus all the observations that
scientists around the world can now make thanks to remote viewing resultant
from the digital age.
Resources
Thanks for finding all this info about the projects, and the video. That is quite some process. I, too, did a little research for my post because I couldn't remember much of what our tour guide said. But I didn't find what I was looking for. I did come across this cool link, though, if you are interested in other caltech research and black holes: http://www.black-holes.org/
ReplyDelete4 points. sometimes it doesn't take a big telescope to make a cool discovery. those all sky surveys were done with the 48" diameter telescope, not the 200".
ReplyDelete