Today's trek was to attempt a climb up Mt Palomar.
Part way up the mountain we decided to check the fuel level... oops.. back down we go to get some fuel. But, we finally did get up to the top. At the top is the Cal Tech Mt Palomar observatory.
After a bite of lunch we headed out to check the observatory.
This is home of the Hale 200" reflecting telescope, at one time the largest in the world from 1948 until 1976. The mirror blank was made by Corning, from the then new material Pyrex in 1934, took a full year to cool, they do it slow it seems. It took 13 years and the removal of 10,000 lbs of Pyrex before the polishing and concave shaping was complete. The mirror was coated (and still is re-coated every 18–24 months) with a
reflective aluminum surface using the same aluminum vacuum-deposition
process invented in 1930 by Caltech physicist and astronomer John
Strong.
Cal Tech's Mt Palomar web site
The ride down was a bit quicker than the ride up...
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