Lowell Observatory
Observatory #19 which houses the telescope used to discover Pluto.
Shoot? Do you think they had cameras in mind when they created this?
Behind me to the left (my right) is the telescope carried across the country and used to survey sites by William Henry Pickering of Harvard who teamed up with Lowell Percival to help create Lowell Observatory.
Telescope used by Clyde Tombough who discovered Pluto. Percival Lowell was instrumental in the discovery in so much as he believed in the existence of a "planet X" that he believed explained the peculiarly perturbed orbit of Uranus. In fact, the planet Percival thought existed lead serendipitously to the discovery of Pluto, a celestial body too small to explain Uranus's orbit.
Guide star scope eye-piece. Clyde Tombough used to keep the telescope tracking precisely for many tens of minutes or even hours to get the exposure he needed.
Graduated declination ring on telescope used to discover Pluto.
Observation notes of Mars by Percival Lowell (PL) himself using the famous 26-inch Clark telescope.
P. Lowell created globes of Mars every year as a way of communicating his observation in context to the spherical object that the planet Mars is. Note, these are hand-drawn; it is believed by Percival himself.
The recently (re)discovered Mars globes created by P. Lowell.
Amazingly enough this is the envelope containing the gas plate used to discover Pluto by Clyde Tombough.
Note the caption: "5 - Planet 'X" (Pluto) at last found !!!" This was likely written within a few weeks of the actual discovery (March 13, 1930) when the official name of "Pluto" was given on May 30, 1930.
The name of Pluto was suggested by Venetia Burney — an eleven-year-old English schoolgirl — in keeping the tradition of naming after gods from classical occidental mythology. And it did not hurt that the symbol for Pluto (♇) looks a lot like P. Lowell's initials, "PL".
These are both oculars used for the camera and some small plates of Saturn (top-right) and a solar eclipse (lower-right). Ironically, we all enjoyed the May 20, 2012 annular eclipse only yesterday.
The sharp end of a spectrometer
Big Dipper pouring into Clark Observatory.
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Folks waiting inline to use the Clark 24-inch refractor telescope to view Saturn. Trust you I; it was well-worth the wait.
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Percival Lowell Mausoleum
The original dome done with lead-infused glass tiles is too fragile to handle the elements, and to expensive to keep replacing; consequently an outer protective clear-glass dome was put up to help protect things.lowell observatory20120521clark telescope star partylowell tour
Lowell Observatory Clark 24-inch Telescope
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From Arizona
