Historic Mount Wilson Telescope
Coming to the Little Thompson Observatory
The Little Thompson Observatory has been chosen as the new home for the retired 24-inch telescope from Mount Wilson Observatory in California. The telescope, originally built to support NASA’s Apollo missions, was donated to Telescopes in Education, which in turn offered the telescope on long-term loan to the Little Thompson Observatory (LTO).
“We are thrilled, not just to get a larger second telescope for the observatory, but to provide a new home for an instrument of NASA history,” said Andrea Schweitzer, astronomer and board member of the LTO.
Volunteers are constructing an addition to double the size of the observatory. This addition will make room for larger audiences, and will include a second telescope dome. “The expansion work is nearly completed, thanks to the dedication and effort of many volunteers,” said Meinte Veldhuis, LTO board president, “and then we were selected to get the Mount Wilson 24-inch. For the LTO and Berthoud to get it is an honor.”
The telescope, which has a large 24-inch diameter mirror, was designed and built by Caltech in the early 1960′s to support NASA’s Apollo program. The telescope studied the Moon to prove that the lunar surface was solid. The telescope observations were also used to find landing sites on the Moon, since areas with too thick of a layer of lunar dust could have been hazardous for the astronauts.
Following the Apollo program, the 24-inch telescope was used for astronomical research and made some of the first infrared observations of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, according to Mount Wilson astronomers. After its two-decade-long research career, it continued operating under the Telescopes in Education program. Then the telescope was decommissioned last year from Mount Wilson to make room for more modern instruments. LTO board member Larry Westrum said, “People at Mount Wilson were very emotional about this telescope, and happy to see somebody like LTO take it and put it into public use.”
Meinte Veldhuis and Larry Westrum made the drive to California through 114-degree heat to get the telescope and bring it back to its new home in Colorado.
The massive 1-ton telescope will have to be refurbished and reassembled, and the supporting pier and dome completed, before the telescope can be installed.
Donations and volunteer assistance will be needed to complete the project, since the LTO is an all-volunteer non-profit organization. “It’s a pretty beefy instrument, not like what you’d buy retail. It was built to be used for a long time,” said Larry Westrum.
New Dome Rotation Test 5/23/09
History of the 24-inch telescope
Those who would like to contribute, either with donations or by volunteering, can find more information on the observatory website at:
