Lake Havasu Astronomy Club
Lake Havasu City, AZ

Lowell Observatory Trip
March 14, 2007

Glen arranged a private tour of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ. Four LHAC members, two spouses, five of Glen’s students and four parents attended.

Sandy and I travelled to Flag early in the day and visited Meteor Crater, 35 miles to the east. They claim it to be “the best preserved and first proven meteorite impact site on the planet Earth”. The meteor is estimated to have impacted the Earth 50,000 years ago. The crater is 4,000 feet across, 2.4 miles in circumference and 550 feet deep; quite impressive. There is also a learning center, gift shop and Subway restaurant.

We arrived at Lowell about 3 hours before the tour was scheduled to begin. The McAllister telescope was open for public viewing where we observed Venus, M35 and M41. Later the Clark telescope opened for public viewing of Saturn but the lines were very long so we opted to wait for our private tour to view Saturn.

Our tour guide, Kevin Schindler, began our tour in the Slipher Building Rotunda which houses many photos, unique astro equipment and tons of information about the early years at Lowell. The original telescope that Percival Lowell used to lug up and down the mountain was on display as well as an original Blink Comparator which was instrumental in the discovery of Pluto.

We then proceeded to the Clark telescope, a 24” refractor. Unfortunately, a thin cloud cover had rolled in which prevented viewing anything except Saturn. After everyone had several chances to view Saturn Kevin, with the assistance of one of Glen’s students, demonstrated how the telescope operates, let one of the students roll the dome around and with the help of several students closed the dome.

The next stop on the tour was the telescope used for photographing the skies when searching for Pluto. This telescope was built with a much wider FOV than the Clark to facilitate imaging onto large plates. The plates were then studied using the Blink Comparator. This pre-depression era telescope was hand-made onsite.

Next up was a 21” reflector housed in a building with a roll-off roof.

The tour concluded with a visit to the wood shop and a quick stop by Percival Lowell’s mausoleum.

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