Tour of the Telescope

Yesterday, we had a chance to see the telescope in all of its glory. And it is HUGE!

The Gemini South Telescope with the dome lights on.

It really makes you appreciate the amount of equipment you need to directly image these faint extrasolar planets that are orbiting other stars. Andrew, the telescope operator, then pointed the telescope down so that we could get some nice photographs with the 8-meter mirror. Here’s my telescope selfie:

Telescope selfie!

The 8 meter mirror is so big it’s hard to fit into one single shot. This was the best I could do. Although some others are a bit more serious about their photography…

Markus sprawling out to get a nice shot of Lee, a journalist visiting us, with the telescope.

Before the sun fully set, I ran outside to grab this image of the telescope dome open.

The telescope dome open at sunset .

Now back to observing!