Mount Palomar

The other day we drove up Mount Palomar to see the famous telescope. It was a waste. After a long drive and a long winding road up the mountain, we climbed the stairs into a dimly-lit observatory. There was no guide to be seen. The huge telescope stood in near-darkness behind a glass wall and a railing.

We tried to find out how the telescope worked, but the large discolored diagram behind the glass was confusing. There was no literature to explain matters, and my friend and I came to different interpretations.

Leaving the observatory in frustration, we entered another building called the museum, from which a voice came booming out. This so-called museum proved merely to be a large hall with some 40 slides on a circular wall. The booming voice was coming from a video on two TV screens. The slides (really enlarged negatives) were attractive but no claim was made that they were taken through the Mount Palomar telescope. Nor did they show the telescope itself or astronomers at work.

The video, of poor quality, only showed how the 200-inch reflector lens was made and moved.

In all the time we were there, we saw no personnel nor any bell to ring nor door to knock on.

We would have done much better to visit the Los Angeles observatory at Griffith Park that we had practically driven past the day before.

I wonder how many visitors from distant countries keep making the same trip with the same results. With the tremendous interest in astronomy today, how is it that this tourist wonder is kept under wraps?

PAUL GROSSBERG

San Francisco