While we were there, we walked around their little science center and gift shop, and even saw another large piece of the meteorite that had caused the Meteor Crater. We were a little disappointed to learn that we had missed the only tour to check out the Discovery Channel Telescope and use it glimpse the sun and daytime sky while we were out exploring said Meteor Crater...but we were happy enough to sign on for the tour of the telescope used to discover Pluto.
This is the Blink Comparator machine that Clyde Tombaugh used to discover Pluto on February 18, 1930. After checking it out, my hat's off to Mr. Tombaugh. The star field represented on the image plates contains hundreds of stars, and his being able to notice that one of the little dots moved backwards six days later in comparison is just crazy. I would go crazy looking at those little comparison plates all the time.
I had a great time on the tour, at least at the beginning. I thought that the story about how a young pig farmer came and discovered Pluto in a very short period of time when the entire astronomical community had been searching for the proposed "Planet X" for years and years was fascinating. I was the proudest mommy in the room when the tour guide asked what 4,000 plus 6,000 was, and Connor was the only one to shout out 10,000 as quick as can be! But, for some reason, Lex wasn't so intrigued by the tour, and I ended up having to take him out of the room for the rest of the story. So I need to get a book about it to find out the rest. And, once we started our walk up the hill to go see the actual telescope used to find Pluto, it became clear that Connor and Kevin were done with the tour, too. But I made them stick it out long enough for me to see the darn telescope. And I did. After which, we promptly left, nevermind that we were abandoning the tour midway through.
The Pluto telescope is in that building. As were we. For about 2 whole minutes. But I'm happy with that.
1 comment:
WOW that is so neat. I'm loving this blog!
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