Control Room of the Lovell Telescope. Photo credit: Anthony Holloway, Jodrell Bank
In a slightly delayed celebration of Bernard Lovell’s 98th birthday, today’s wallpaper gives us an inside (literally) look at the 76-meter Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank.
CTIO Blanco 4-meter telescope, 2007. Photo courtesy: T. Abbott and NOAO/AURA/NSF
Today’s wallpaper shows the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. I retrieved this image from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s image bank (click on the image for more wallpaper sizes). You know what else they have on offer? A great collection of astronomy-themed wallpapers for your iPhone.
Gemini North Waking Up. Photo credit: Kairyu
Here’s a daytime photo, to complement one of my all-time favorite night-time images of Gemini North, Mauna Kea, Hawai’i. Click on the image to download the wallpaper in various sizes, including those meant for mobile devices as well as desktop computers.
Telescope Silhouette
Today’s wallpaper is a fanciful but eye-catching vector drawing of a small telescope silhouetted against an amazingly starry sky.
Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, UK.
In keeping with this week’s theme of archaeoastronomy, I’m sharing this lovely photo of Stonehenge. More Stonehenge wallpapers can be downloaded here.
Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope
Today’s lovely wallpaper (click on image to download) shows the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT), at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), not the Onsala Space Observatory, as the linked page would have you believe. The Westerbork telescope works on the same interferometry principles that determine the design and use of other mobile arrays, such as the Very Large Array (VLA) at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the One-Mile Telescope at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO), and the Australia Telescope Compact Array at the Paul Wild Observatory. Although you can’t really tell from this photo, one thing that sets this array apart from most is that the telescopes have equatorial, rather than alt-azimuth, mounts.
Cruz del Sur Observatory, Chile. Photo credit: Rodrigo Marín Baez
Today’s wall paper shows the Cruz del Sur Observatory in Cerro El Peralito, near Combarbalá, Chile. This observatory, which consists of four domes arranged to mimic the Southern Cross constellation, exists to spread the passion for astronomy in the local community. The domes pinning down the ends of the large arm of the cross house 16″ Meade LX200-R-type Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes. The domes anchoring the short arm of the cross house 14″ Meade LX200-R-type Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes. Although visitors are required to book ahead and pay a nominal ticket fee, the observatory welcomes guests for tours during the day and night.
Click on the image and look to the right hand column to download the image as wallpaper.
Aflame. Image credit: NASA
Sandra Olson, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, uses her art to demonstrate the effects of gravity on fire. In the image above, she’s created multiple layers of three images of flames produced in microgravity environments. The different colors are caused by different chemical reactions: the blue is produced by chemiluminescence, while the yellow, orange and white are caused by ‘glowing soot.’ Olson’s photo won first place at the 2011 Combustion Art Competition, held at the 7th U.S. National Combustion Meeting. However, this image is more than pretty—the real purpose of microgravity combustion research is to ensure fire safety during spaceflight.
A Change of Seasons on Saturn. Image credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team
In honor of the telescope’s one millionth science observation, I’m posting my favorite Hubble composite image as today’s wallpaper suggestion. Any resemblance to the tattoo on the back of my right calf is completely coincidental.
Laser and Star Trails over Gemini North. Photo credit: Gemini Observatory/Joy Pollard
Today’s wallpaper features Gemini North, the Mauna Kea branch of the Gemini Observatory. Like Gemini South on the summit of Cerro Pachon in Chile, the observatory at Gemini North houses an 8.1-meter diameter optical/infrared telescope. Together, North and South are capable of surveying the entire night sky with an array of instruments.
In addition to star trails, the image above shows the trace the Laser Guide Star (the LGS creates an “artificial star” which is used as a reference source for the adaptive optics systems of the telescope’s various instruments) created on May 21, 2010. If you’re looking at the high-res wallpaper, you can see a similar LGS trace from the W. M. Keck Observatory in the lower left hand corner of the photo. The bright, wide streak at the far left of the image is the moon’s trail. Several other Mauna Kea observatories and telescopes are also visible in the high-res image. From left to right, they are: the Subaru Telescope (looks like a tube set on end), Keck (the twin domes), NASA IRTF (behind which can be seen the peak of Haleakalā on Maui, rising from the clouds), and CFHT (just behind Gemini North).
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