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Cosmic Odyssey: How Intrepid Astronomers at Palomar Observatory Changed our View of the Universe
From newborn galaxies to icy worlds and blazing quasars, a behind-the-scenes story of how Palomar Observatory astronomers unveiled our complex universe.Ever since 1936, pioneering scientists at Palomar Observatory in Southern California have pushed against the boundaries of the known universe, making a series of dazzling discoveries that changed our view of the cosmos: quasars, colliding galaxies, supermassive black holes, brown dwarfs, supernovae, dark matter, the never-ending expansion of the universe, and much more. In Cosmic Odyssey, astronomer Linda Schweizer tells the story of the men and women at Palomar and their efforts to decipher the vast energies and mysterious processes that govern our universe.
Palomar was the Apollo mission of its era. The first images from the 200-inch George Ellery Hale telescope, commissioned in 1948 as the world's largest, generated as much excitement as images from the moon in 1969 and from the Hubble Space Telescope more recently. So far, Palomar's "Big Eye" and three other telescopes have yielded more than 75,000 telescope-nights of precious data. Schweizer takes readers behind the scenes of scientific discovery, mapping the often chaotic process of detours, dead ends, and serendipitous leaps of insight. Although her focus is on Palomar, she follows threads of discovery across the world to other teams and observatories. Based on more than one hundred interviews and enhanced by research in scientific journals, her account paints a fascinating picture of how discrete insights acquired over decades by researchers in a global community cascade, collide, and finally coalesce into the discoveries we come to accept as facts.
Palomar was the Apollo mission of its era. The first images from the 200-inch George Ellery Hale telescope, commissioned in 1948 as the world's largest, generated as much excitement as images from the moon in 1969 and from the Hubble Space Telescope more recently. So far, Palomar's "Big Eye" and three other telescopes have yielded more than 75,000 telescope-nights of precious data. Schweizer takes readers behind the scenes of scientific discovery, mapping the often chaotic process of detours, dead ends, and serendipitous leaps of insight. Although her focus is on Palomar, she follows threads of discovery across the world to other teams and observatories. Based on more than one hundred interviews and enhanced by research in scientific journals, her account paints a fascinating picture of how discrete insights acquired over decades by researchers in a global community cascade, collide, and finally coalesce into the discoveries we come to accept as facts.
318 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 24, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 8, 2021
I’m a retired astronomy teacher (high school) and this history of Mt. Palomar struck many a nerve (in good ways!). Many of the concepts taught have their foundation in the observing and research initiated there and who of knew that rich tradition. The evolution of spectroscopy technology was well explained, including the serendipity of piecemeal engineering of many observing instruments.
Schweitzer’s well researched book should be required reading for an undergrad intro to astronomy course. It would definitely any reader understand the scope of astronomical observing - so much more than “pretty pictures” taken in the visible light spectrum. And to realize all that the telescopes at Mt. Palomar are antiques, yet even today they nightly ingest terabytes of data for the new horizons of observing.
Kudos to Linda Schweitzer!
Schweitzer’s well researched book should be required reading for an undergrad intro to astronomy course. It would definitely any reader understand the scope of astronomical observing - so much more than “pretty pictures” taken in the visible light spectrum. And to realize all that the telescopes at Mt. Palomar are antiques, yet even today they nightly ingest terabytes of data for the new horizons of observing.
Kudos to Linda Schweitzer!
December 26, 2020
The Palomar Observatory has been an icon of astronomy since the early 1930s. The story of its creation as been told (see The Perfect Machine by Ronald Florence), but until now there has been no account that highlights the results of its scientific mission. Linda Schweizer's Cosmic Odyssey expertly recounts the tales of the astronomers who used the Palomar Observatory and revolutionized our understanding of the universe.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews