This photo shows the bike perched at the highest point of Palomar Mountain, near the lookout tower. Seen in the distance is the massive 200" Hale Telescope, part of Caltech's Palomar Observatory. I was able to get permission to use the fire access road from the forest service located near the observatory to access the highpoint on my bike using this road. The route dropped a bit from the forest service office area, crossed four gates, the climbed back up to the highpoint about 800 vertical feet in three miles, one way. Fantastic views of Socal from the top. May 4, 2012.
This video shows the ride from the summit area back to the Forest Service office along the ridge up there, hopefully it helps to get an idea of what it is like.
Thanks BD, I decided to leave the music off this one. That ride up there was short but fun! After hitting up a lot of the same runs here in Utah over and over this one was a nice break to have hit up. I wish I had more time while I was in the area to do more.
That place was big inside that dome! Huge. I took my kids up a couple days prior to heading to the highpoint in this photo and toured the area. The dome itself was open, we were able to go up to the main platform and check out the telescope itself. Massive! We also hit up the museum which is situated close by. It seems that the Hale Telescope took a while to build due to WWII.
Yeah. Telescope observatories are awesome places to visit, great for kids. Managed to sit in on some observing at the Lick Observatory in Santa Clara, CA.
The "next generation" scopes are going to be massive. The Giant Magellen, at 21 metres ! And studies for 40 and 50 metre diameters. Bearing in mind the ratio of diameter to area (2 Pi r), the detail that will be coming in will be mind blowing.
That would be a cool job to have really, sitting perched on a high place with a huge telescope like that. Imagine the solitude. And 21 meters is pretty huge! I can't imagine how large the enclosure would be to house something that big.
While up there with the kids a couple days prior to this ride, it was neat to be able to read more about the Shoemaker-Levy comet discovery that happened on that mountain. Such a rare event caught in our lifetime... I've seen the Discovery episode about near earth objects in space, which featured that comet and it's demise.
Palomar Mountain (Area/Bike Park)
Palomar Mountain (Area/Bike Park)
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