For faster browsing, click on the underlined text legend below any of the thumbnail images in the galleries. Use your browser BACK button to return you to the gallery. If you find a picture you like, you can download the image at full original resolution (mostly between 24-45 Mpixels; with some panoramas >100 Mpix) by clicking on the thumbnail itself. To save a downloaded image, right click on it and scroll to 'save picture as...'. To use an image as your desktop background, right click and scroll to 'set as background...'. Visitors are welcome to download images for personal use (e.g. as computer desktop wallpaper). Click HERE to order prints online. Please contact Ian Parker at evanescentlightphotography@gmail.com regarding possible commercial use.Details of copyright, image use and licensing are HERE.
Photos from a visit to Mt. Wilsonon May 19 2024 for an afternoon concert in the dome of the 100 inch telescope, followed by a half-night observing through the 60 inch telescope. Many thanks to our telescope operator Tom Meneghini and his assistant Tom
The telescope was originally driven around its polar axis by clock drive that would regulate the speed at which it would sweep across the sky, tracing the arcs followed by the stars during the night. The mechanism is literaally like a giant grandfather clock, with the tube moved by the force of a massive falling weight. The photos below show the governor, with determined the speed of rotation. Tracking is now done with a conmputer-controlled electric motor.
Attached to the end of the 100-inch telescope in 1929 this equipment enabled Michelson and Pease to determine the precise diameter of a star, the red giant Betelgeuse, the first time the angular size of a star had ever been measured.
Some objects photographed through the 60 inch telescope.
We were combining visual observation with photography, so to minimize set-up time I photographed through the eyepiece, using a 500 mm f1.4 lens on my Canon R5 camera.
Cat's eye nebula
Globular star cluster
Ring nebula
Viewing conditions were not ideal, with a full moon and relatively unsteady seeing (e.g. speckle in short-exposure of double star at right below). Nevertheless we got clear resolution of the four stars in the double double star Epsilon Lyrae. There is noticable chromatic abberation in the star images, which might be attributable to the camera lens or eyepiece, rahter than the telescope.
"Double double" stars
Double stars; 1/8s exposure
Double stars; 1/180s exposure
created 05/22/2024
IanParker
1146 McGaugh Hall
University of California,
Irvine, CA 92697
Please send enquiries to evanescentlightphotography@gmail.com
