Star Struck

I've grown up hearing about the Whipple Observatory.  The full name of the place is Mount Hopkins Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory.  The Crab Nebula was first detected here using their gamma-ray dishes.  Numerous supernova and quasars have been identified and now the observatory is discovering planets circling other stars.

We noticed a white spot on the top of a nearby peak when we first moved into the RV park.  It's the building for the main 6.5 meter mirrored telescope.  The telescope was 12 miles away (much longer by road).

There are 4 gamma-ray reflectors around the administrative and visitor center.  These detect secondary radiation from gamma rays.  The gamma rays may come from black holes, supernovae, and quasars.  Pretty cool!



Another cool thing here was a petroglyph they found during construction.