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A Very Special Place
The Mt. Wilson observatory, located on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California, is one of the very special places in the history of Science. Here, in the 1920s, Edwin Hubble made astronomical observations that led him to discover the concept of the Galaxy. He also discovered that the Universe is expanding. Today, these ideas seem like something that would be found on Page 1 in an introductory textbook on Astronomy, but in Hubble's time they were both revolutionary and controversial.
The photo is dominated by light pollution originating in eastern Los Angles County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County, and Orange County. The dashed lines are lights from aircraft circling the nearby Ontario Airport. The observatory dome is bathed in the light of a quarter Moon.
Presently, the observatory has limited use for nighttime viewing due to light generated by nearly 15 million human inhabitants. There is, however, a separate observatory with a helioscope that is still used for solar research.
A Very Special Place
The Mt. Wilson observatory, located on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California, is one of the very special places in the history of Science. Here, in the 1920s, Edwin Hubble made astronomical observations that led him to discover the concept of the Galaxy. He also discovered that the Universe is expanding. Today, these ideas seem like something that would be found on Page 1 in an introductory textbook on Astronomy, but in Hubble's time they were both revolutionary and controversial.
The photo is dominated by light pollution originating in eastern Los Angles County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County, and Orange County. The dashed lines are lights from aircraft circling the nearby Ontario Airport. The observatory dome is bathed in the light of a quarter Moon.
Presently, the observatory has limited use for nighttime viewing due to light generated by nearly 15 million human inhabitants. There is, however, a separate observatory with a helioscope that is still used for solar research.