APOD: Bright Planets at McMath Pierce... (2012 Mar 16)

[APOD Robot]

Bright Planets at McMath Pierce Solar Telescope

Explanation: Bright planets Venus and Jupiter are framed by the National Solar Observatory's McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope in this very astronomical scene. The photo was taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory on March 9. A heliostat sits atop the 100 foot high solar telescope tower to focus the Sun's rays down a long diagonal shaft that reaches underground to the telescope's primary mirror. Of course, after sunset shadows were cast and the structure illuminated by light from the nearly full rising Moon. Opened to begin the night's work, the dome housing Kitt Peak's 2.1 meter reflector is included in the frame, while the Pleiades star cluster shines above the heliostat tower. The angular McMath-Pierce was commissioned 50 years ago to study the Sun, but has also made many observations of these two bright planets. On this night it was conducting observations of sodium ions in the tenuous lunar atmosphere.

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[K1NS]

Hey, sumthin' ain't kosher!

The vertical shadow below the heliostat should continue onto the horizontal surface above it. Where is it?!?!

[owlice]

What a cool shot this is! Planets, cluster, observational tools for both day and night, and moonlight. It's got everything!

[rstevenson]

Hey, sumthin' ain't kosher!

The vertical shadow below the heliostat should continue onto the horizontal surface above it. Where is it?!?!

Unless the post or whatever was casting the shadow happens to be just that tall.

Rob

[orin stepanek]

I guess I never considered the Moon having an atmosphere. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... st26oct_1/

[neufer]

<<Kitt Peak (O'odham: Ioligam) is a [2,096 m] mountain 88 kilometers southwest of Tucson, Arizona. The peak was named in English by County Surveyor George J. Roskruge for his sister, who was the wife of William F. Kitt. Kitt Peak was selected by its first director, Aden B. Meinel, in 1958 as the site for a national observatory under contract with the National Science Foundation. The observatory sites are under lease from the Tohono O'odham Nation at the amount of a quarter dollar per acre yearly, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Council in the 1950s.

Kitt Peak is the second-highest peak on the Tohono O'odham indian reservation, and as such is the second-most sacred after Baboquivari Peak. Near the summit is I'itoi's Garden, the summer residence of the nation's elder brother deity. The name Ioligam means "red stick" in reference to the abundance of manzanita bushes on and around the mountain. In 2005, the Tohono O'odham Nation brought suit against the NSF to stop further construction of gamma ray detectors in I'itoi's Garden.>>

[img3="According to O'odham oral history, the labyrinth design depicts experiences and choices we make in our journey through life. In the middle of the "maze", a person finds their dreams and goals. When one reaches the center, we have one final opportunity (the last turn in the design) to look back upon our choices and path, before the Sun God greets us and passes us into the next world."]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ag.svg.png[/img3]

<<Iʼitoi or Iʼithi is, in the tradition of the O'odham people, the mischievous creator god who resides in a cave just below the peak of Baboquivari Mountain, part of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Visitors to the cave are asked to bring a gift to ensure their safe return from the depths. I'itoi is said to have brought the Hohokam people to this earth from the underworld, said to be ancestors of both the Tohono O'odham and the Pima.

Iʼitoi is most often referred to as the Man in the Maze, a reference to a design appearing on native basketry and petroglyphs which positions him at the entry to a labyrinth. This labyrinth is believed by the Pima to be a floorplan of his house, and by the Tohono O'odham to be a map giving directions to his house. The Man in the Maze motif is used liberally in the American Southwest, most prominently by Tohono O'odham silversmiths in rings and jewelry to showcase the quality of their technique and by Pima basketweavers, with whom it has been a very popular pattern since the 1900s. Every basket pattern has a "mistake" (also known as a "dau", or door) intentionally integrated into its design so that the spirit of the basket can be released.

as told by Alfretta Antone:

• "Elder Brother lived in the maze ... and the reason why he lived in the maze was because ... I think how I'm gonna say this ... magician or oh, medicine man that can disappear, and that can do things, heal people and things like that ... that was Elder Brother ... Se:he ... they called him ... he lived in there ... but he had a lot of enemies so he made that, and to live in there people would go in there but they couldn't find him ... they would turn around and go back.
  
  "But in real life ... when you look at the maze you start from the top and go into the maze ... your life, you go down and then you reach a place where you have to turn around ... maybe in your own life you fall, something happens in your home, you are sad, you pick yourself up and you go on through the maze ... you go on and on and on ... so many places in there you might ... maybe your child died ... or maybe somebody died, or you stop, you fall and you feel bad ... you get up, turn around and go again ... when you reach that middle of the maze ... that's when you see the Sun God and the Sun God blesses you and say you have made it ... that's where you die.
  
  "The maze is a symbol of life ... happiness, sadness ... and you reach your goal ... there's a dream there, and you reach that dream when you get to the middle of the maze ... that's how I was told, my grandparents told me that's how the maze is.">>

[Sandstone]

Hey, sumthin' ain't kosher!

The vertical shadow below the heliostat should continue onto the horizontal surface above it. Where is it?!?!

Unless the post or whatever was casting the shadow happens to be just that tall.

Rob

This view from Google Earth shows two poles, the one further back, which I've labeled as "Pole 2", may be the second shadow. The fact that the shadow is less dense (i.e. more penumbral) suggests that the blocking source that created that shadow is further away (or skinnier, or both). Probably coincidental like Rob indicated.

[geckzilla]

You don't even need satellite imagery. Simply viewing the large version you can easily see that the densest part of the shadow ends just before the corner of the structure and only the penumbra touches the corner, extends slightly past it, and that it's entirely coincidental.