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Spotting the sun

Each day at sunrise, Steve Padilla leaves his cottage on Mt. Wilson and walks 200 yards over to the solar observatory. Padilla, a solar technician, will then open the telescope and sketch the sunspots, a practice that has been done since 1917.

Each day at sunrise, Steve Padilla leaves his cottage on Mt. Wilson and walks 200 yards over to the solar observatory. Padilla, a solar technician, will then open the telescope and sketch the sunspots, a practice that has been done since 1917.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Like cloistered monks in the Dark Ages who devoted hours of their lives to creating manuscripts that few could read, Steve Padilla sits atop Mt. Wilson and draws, maps and classifies the sunspots that have formed on this familiar star, adding to more than 28,000 daily drawings that date back to 1917.

Steve Padilla

Padilla takes a two-minute ride in an open-air bucket to the top of the observatory. As a boy, he studied these mountains, and as an amateur astronomer, he knew someone who knew someone and got a part-time job at Mt. Wilson in 1974. Two years later, he was hired full time.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Steve Padilla

Sunlight streams through the opening in the solar tower as Padilla observes the day’s sunspots.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Steve Padilla

Padilla uses calculations to render daily drawings of the sunspots he observes.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Steve Padilla

The sunspot drawings are used by the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., to help forecast solar flares. The agency correlates findings from Mt. Wilson with similar observations from Australia, Italy and New Mexico.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Steve Padilla

From the top of Mt. Wilson, 5,700 feet above Los Angeles, mountains as far south as Mexico and the city’s snaking freeways can be seen on the horizon.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Steve Padilla

Padilla passes by the solar tower atop Mt. Wilson.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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