Dean describes some of the world's more remote observatories, and chats with professor of physics and astronomy at Eastern Michigan University and the director of the Sherzer Observatory, Norbert Vance, about his experience traveling to one of them.
Send us your thoughts at lookingup@wvxu.org or post them on social media using #lookinguppodcast
Additional resources referenced in this episode:
- W. M. Keck Observatory
- Lick Observatory Virtual Tour
- Talking With Grown-Ups About Pluto (And Other Fun Controversies), Star Stuff Podcast
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Looking Up is transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Dean Regas: Astronomy can take you on lots of exciting adventures. Not only do you get to peer deeply into the enormity of space, but you often have to do it. From some remote and exotic locations. The largest telescopes in the United States are on the big island of Hawaii. These are the Keck telescopes, and they have series of segmented mirrors, totaling about 40 feet in diameter.
[Archival Sound]: The Keck primary mirrors are each 10 meters in diameter and are able to see more detail and further into the cosmos than any other current research facility.
Dean Regas: And to reach them, you have to drive up a treacherous road to 13, 600 feet above sea level. Atop the dormant volcano called Mauna Kea. The landscape up there is so alien that you almost feel like you're on a different planet.
In fact, astronomers have to acclimate to the elevation slowly because going from sea level to 13, 600 feet, it's not recommended. Doing astronomy in the 21st century will literally take your breath away. From the studios of Cincinnati Public Radio, I'm your host Dean Regas, and this is Looking Up,
the show that takes you deep into the cosmos or just to the telescope in your backyard to learn more about what makes this amazing universe of ours so great. My guest today is professor of physics and astronomy at Eastern Michigan University and the director of the Sherzer Observatory, Norbert Vance.
So, I actually went to Mauna Kea twice, but only one time did I successfully make it to the top because the first time I went up there, I mean, this is Hawaii. But at that elevation, the snow had closed the road. And so, you can't even access it a lot of the times. And so that first time I went, no trip up to the top.
Second time, boy, it was still quite an adventure. Wind almost closed it, uh, but we still made it up there. I had to hitch a ride with one of the amateur astronomers, and we made it all the way up to the top. What a view. Just imagine living up there. I would say out of all of my adventures to observatories, probably the most dangerous of all of them was when I went to the Lick Observatory.
This is on Mount Hamilton outside San Jose, California.
[Archival Sound]: So, uh, here at Lick Observatory, we're about an hour outside of San Jose, on top of Mount Hamilton. We're at an elevation of, uh, 4, 200 feet, or about 1, 300 meters, which is relatively low in terms of modern astronomical observatories. But of course, we were the first permanently occupied mountaintop observatory.
Dean Regas: And this is a big historic observatory but has a humongous refracting telescope. And so, I went there in the winter just to visit, you know, during the daytime. And the road was closed due to snow. This was a while ago. So, I was undeterred by snow quite often. Nowadays, I'm kind of scared of it. But back then I had an appointment with one of the astronomers.
So, they even had to like a police officer at the bottom of the mountain turning people away. And so, I, uh, I, you know, I talked my way past the police officer. And, uh, basically I said, you know, I have a point with Dr. Uh, so and so Dr. X. And he said, oh, you know, Dr. X. Oh yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. So, I guess the road was safe enough.
And I did make it to the top, you know, I kind of like slid into the guest parking lot, I went into the building and there we are this like windblown snow drifts are piled up against the buildings and like the snow was about halfway up. up the walls toward the domes, trees were completely buried in snow.
I mean, this was like, I just felt like I was like in the Himalayas or something like that. So I met my tour guide and he even let me move the gigantic telescope, 36 inches in diameter, 50 some feet long. It was huge. But the part that I remember the most was when we went outside. And the wind was just whipping around here, and you can see these trees bent over and snow drifts everywhere and my guide.
And by the way, I'm not saying who the guide was because I'm not sure if he was supposed to let me, uh, tour. So I don't want to get him in any trouble, but anyway, he pointed at the astronomers’ housing and I was like, what housing? What are you talking about? It's like over there and barely sticking out of the snow were a few pitched roofs.
And he said, that's. where we live. And I was like, what do you mean that you live here at the top of the mountain? Of course, where else would you go? Uh, and he said, well, not exactly. I mean, I stay here sometimes, but most of the astronomers actually stay down in the city and they can do things pretty remotely nowadays.
So, it's not quite as romantic. I would say that they're all up at the mountaintop observatories working all nights and all hours. I'd love to do it. I'd love to stay up there. Maybe for one season. My guest today has done it. He's weathered the journey to a mountaintop observatory and lived to share his research.
Norbert Vance: I'm Norbert Vance. I am the observatory director of Sherzer Observatory here at Eastern Michigan University and also a department technician for physics and astronomy.
Dean Regas: Well, Professor Vance, thanks for joining me today.
Norbert Vance: You're welcome. Glad to be here. In my official capacity, I've been at it since 1991, but I've been part of this university since I was a student here in the 1970s. So, I've been wrapped up in astronomy here at EMU for the better part of four decades.
Dean Regas: And a particular observatory on campus.
Norbert Vance: Yes, Sherzer Observatory, a venerable place. It's got some history to it. Yeah, tell us about that. In 1903, a science building was built by, uh, William Sherzer. At least he was the one responsible for it.
He had visited the science labs of Germany at the time, was so impressed with what they had in Germany, he literally did the proverbial draw it on a, on an envelope and bring it back to Michigan kind of thing. And they built the building back, uh, Over a century ago. And, uh, part of it was to put an observatory on top.
Dean Regas: Yeah. And when I was there, we kind of discussed, uh, life at an observatory, the fun parts, the most unique parts, and it never seems like there's a normal night and you all do public events as well. Uh, so what's, uh, what's a normal night program like there and maybe an abnormal one.
Norbert Vance: Let's start with the abnormal one.
You remember the Mars mania of 2003. I love the Mars mania of 2003. And you see in our observatory. Now, now imagine 5, 000 people wanting to get up there.
Dean Regas: That's not easy to get to with all the steps and the narrow, uh, wow, what was the line like?
Norbert Vance: It was an hour plus wait to get to the eyepiece, and everybody had to look through the telescope to see Mars at its best.
Even though we tried to convince people that, you know, they had all week to do it, but they all had to see it that one night. And of course, halfway through the event it clouded up, but a typical night for us, um, we have the door open, we announce to our astronomy classes it will be open and to the public, and they can wander on up and see whatever it is that happens to be out.
Maybe Jupiter or Saturn or, uh, Crescent Moon. And, uh, we have the door open so people can come up and enjoy the views through our 10 inch apochromatic refractory scope.
Dean Regas: Now, uh, the university has a planetarium on campus in the same building, one that you manage. How is that used in education at the college level?
Norbert Vance: Well, we teach our classes there with the advantage of having a fairly simple, what's called a digitalis lambda projector. It's not a complicated one that requires a big staff. In fact, they just use a small. Almost like a TV remote control, you can hand it to the professor, and they don't have to wave their hands and say things go this way and that way.
You can demonstrate it in the classroom, and it holds 37 and has all the other little features, video projection stuff that we can use to teach our courses.
Dean Regas: Well, and then the skies around Eastern Michigan are definitely not the darkest in the country. And so, universities. Yeah, sometimes we have these remote observatories in different parts of the country or around the world and recently you visited EMU's version of that.
Where did you go? And what did you find on that trip?
Norbert Vance: We have a nature center up near Lapeer, Michigan Northeast of Lapeer which is up in the center of Michigan's thumb country in reasonably dark skies We're about 90 miles Uh, north of campus and well outside of Detroit, so we can actually see the Milky Way.
Uh, we have a number of scopes upwards of 18 inch, uh, Dobsonians and so forth. So, we can take students up there for weekend jaunts under a dark sky. And they're pretty amazed by what they learn in just one or two nights there.
Dean Regas: Well, I gotta admit, I was, uh, asking the question about something even farther away that you went to, uh, when you went to Chile recently.
You showed me some slides from your trip there. What's that facility like, and how's that associated with EMU?
Norbert Vance: Well, I know a number of the professors next to that big school just down the road from us you may have heard of at U of M. Oh, right. Them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys. Um, uh, one of the professors, uh, Patrick Seitzer was in control of the Curtis Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo and between COVID and, uh, grant money's drying up from her for a bit.
Uh, the scope had been down for seven years, and he needed somebody to check on his health. Lo and behold, he found a guinea pig in me and another friend, uh, Dr. Brian Autumn, to go down to Chile to Cerro Tololo and check on the health of the telescope, and, uh, I did not pass on that. If you are an astronomer, even an amateur astronomer, at some point in your life, you must, and I emphasize must, get to the southern hemisphere and see the Milky Way from that point.
Lower latitude from, say, 30 south and further. The experience was indescribable. I took a boatload of pictures. Brian and I were saturated in astronomy for ten nights there on the mountain. And, uh, it's, it's quite the adventure. And I should have done it much younger in my life. To see the Southern Milky Way is, it’s life changing.
It really is. It's indescribable, especially in the environment I was in, surrounded by, uh, beautiful white observatory domes on a mountain 7, 000 feet up and looking off to the Pacific in one direction and the Andes Mountains in the other.
Dean Regas: Well, and so the telescope is now up in service and operational. So, it was a successful trip.
Norbert Vance: Yeah, it's working. And I'm pleased to announce too that we have a friend of ours that visited our Fish Lake facility many times. Young lady who's working on her Ph. D. at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She's down there as we speak at Cerro Tololo working on the UNC Mushroom Farm as they call it.
The telescopes that they operate remotely from there. Plane wave instruments that have under five domes. And she's sending back pictures and I'm Reliving my trek from six months ago through her pictures. It's, it really is a magical place.
Dean Regas: Well, anything goes wrong with the telescope, when are you going back and do you need an assistant to go with you?
Norbert Vance: Well, I'll send you down in my place. That nine hour flight, that was a tough one, but no, I would hope that some other person would have the experience. I'm getting up there in years as you can tell, but it really is truly a life changing experience, and I would love for someone else to be able to share in that.
So yeah, certainly if you're interested, I'll,
Dean Regas: I'll let Professor Sizer know. Of course. I mean, you sold me on that. You were showing me these slides from your trip on the planetarium dome. No less. It was really cool. Glad that you had that experience and were able to share it. But Norbert, thanks so much for taking your time here and talking to us about this and hopefully have you some clear skies up there in Michigan soon.
Norbert Vance: I hope so. We're notorious for our clouds. That's right. Good place for an observatory. Yeah. Darn, darn lakes.
Dean Regas: Well, hearing about Professor Vance's experiences in Chile and getting to live at kind of the edge of the world there. I've only had two experiences where I actually stayed at an observatory overnight. One was at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. This is the home to the largest refractor in the world, built in the late 1800s.
And I stayed in the same house that astronomer William Wilson Morgan lived in during his tenure at the observatory in the early 20th century. So, I got to walk the grounds at night, got to view through the telescopes, then woke up to see the whole thing in the morning, that was just truly incredible.
And I thought, what more do you need in life? A roof over your head, heat, shower, kitchen, observatory. I'd say the other memorable stay I had, uh, was at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I got to stay in Clyde Tombaugh's apartment.
[Star Stuff Podcast]: Yeah, we're here in person recording today in Clyde Tombaugh's apartment, where Dean's staying tonight.
Dean Regas: Oh man, I mean, this is amazing. So, Clyde was the fellow who discovered Pluto in 1930 there at the Lowell Observatory, and special guests. And totally, I felt very special, special guests get to stay in the same apartment he used, although some people say he probably didn't use that apartment the night he discovered Pluto, but still, you know, it's fine.
So, at night, uh, you can walk up the hill to the telescope. You can view all night, walk back to bed, wake up to the sunrise over the San Francisco peaks. With one of the best views in Flagstaff. Oh, man, it was so good. And they have a fancy coffee machine there too.
[Star Stuff Podcast]: I mean, so he was like living here and chilling and playing ping pong apparently. That’s right, living his best life. And had an espresso machine apparently that's down the hall. Yes, yes. This is really decked out.
Dean Regas: I could get used to living like that. Looking up with Dean Regas is a production of Cincinnati Public Radio. Kevin Reynolds and I created the podcast in 2017. Ella Rowen and Marshall Verbsky produce and edit our show and aspire to live on top of the crew tower observation deck.
That's the tallest building in Cincinnati. Y'all need to get that thing open again. That was really cool. Jenell Walton is our vice president of content and Ronny Salerno is our digital platforms manager. Our theme song is Possible Light by Ziv Moran and our cover art is by Nicole Tiffany. I'm Dean Regas.
Keep looking up.
