Blog – Page 29 – Kevin's America

Lowell Observatory

Flagstaff AZ

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place…Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
-Isaiah 40:26

Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff AZ is famous for discovering the planet Pluto in 1930. It has a lot of neat things to see and read.

They did a presentation on Colors of the Cosmos.

We learned that some energy levels have visible colors.

And so do elements, when presented with fire.

This is an actual meteorite from the Meteor Crater that we will visit tomorrow.

Telescope that is similar to the one that was used to discover Pluto.

The Measuring Machine, a modified microscope, was used to detect and measure the greatly shifted spectral lines of galaxies on the tiny glass photographic plate on its stage.

This prism box, with its attached fast camera, contains a single prism used to disperse the light of faint objects such as galaxies.

Percival Lowell purchased this Carl Zeiss blink comparator in 1911. While using it to search for a new planet in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.

Percival Lowell’s mother gave him this telescope in 1870. It was his first.

This is another of Lowell’s telescopes, built in 1892. He came from Boston with this telescope to Arizona Territory in 1893, doing site testing in Tombstone, Tucson, Phoenix, Tempe, Prescott and roughly where the observatory sits today.

Lowell has an “outside” observatory, which contains several telescopes that visitors are allowed to see the sky with. This picture is of the sky when we were there. You can see the moon, and the very cloudy sky that prevented us from using the telescopes, in the pictures below.

Interesting chart. You dial in the day and time, and it shows the sky in Flagstaff for it.

This series of illustrations is a basic explanation of our Solar System and galaxy.

This is Percival Lowell’s car “Big Red”, a 1911 Stevens-Duryea Model “Y”. It is valued today at $700,000.

The six-cylinder car is still capable of highway speed of 60 MPH.

Williams, Arizona

Williams is a small town about an hour south of the Grand Canyon. For many years the town depended on business from travelers on the famous Route 66. It was the last town on Route 66 that Interstate 40 bypassed, effectively killing the economy here. Now that Route 66 is a tourist attraction, there is tourist business. Two days after we were here, it snowed 3 inches here!

Grand Canyon Avenue, the Old Route 66, in downtown Williams.

Funny scene at an antique store. The two skeletons in this old car are holding a sign that reads “Original owners”!

Grand Canyon

Arizona

In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
-Psalm 95:4-5

It is hard to give a sense of the size of the Grand Canyon in pictures. You must see it in person to understand how huge it is. Nonetheless, here are some pictures to show small glimpses of the beauty of the Grand Canyon.

Antelope Canyon

Page AZ

This is what God the Lord says— the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it.
-Isaiah 42:5

The images from this canyon are real, even though they don’t look it. The colors changed depending on the the amount of sunlight and the angle of the canyon walls. It was amazing walking through this canyon to see all theses designs!