The Discovery Telescope, operated by the Lowell Observatory, uncovers mysteries of the universe
The Discovery Telescope is one of the largest in the country.
It is located in Happy Jack, about 50 miles away from the Lowell Observatory.
The telescope has been instrumental in discovering eco-planets, supernovas and monitoring the path of asteroid YR 2024.
HAPPY JACK, Ariz. - Tucked away in Happy Jack a very important telescope is hard at work nearly every night, not just on science but on keeping us safe from asteroids, too.
When this telescope first started taking pictures of the night sky in 2012, it was renowned for its versatility.
It proved that point in 2025 as it joined the front lines of planetary defense.
What we know
Beyond a half-mile dirt road up a hill in Happy Jack sits a structure hard to miss. The building, with angles reflecting sunlight throughout the day, inside is one of the largest telescopes in the country.
"They call us the Swiss Army knife of telescopes," said Jake Tiegs who works on the Lowell Discovery Telescope.
It's the Lowell Observatory's largest telescope and is actually 50 miles to the south in Happy Jack.
Tiegs is one of the mechanics that helps keep it operational.
"They have about a mile of power cords, communication cords, fiber optics," said Tiegs.
From the only climate-controlled room in the building, he monitors the weather conditions to make sure the doors can be open.
"If the wind gusts go too high, we close it up. It's a wind closure, we call it," he said.
Once they are closed, he tracks which astronomers across the world have access to point it and makes sure the 6,000-pound mirror is perfectly in shape.
Dig deeper
Jake opened the flaps on the mirror and lowered it down for us to take a look.
Under the telescope, you can see the thin 4.3 meter, 14-foot diameter mirror inside and the mechanisms that constantly shift and adjust to make sure the telescope doesn't move even the slightest.
"We're talking in the neighborhood of tens of thousands of an inch or thousands of an inch," said Tiegs about the shifting mechanisms.
The telescope is actually separate from the building to make sure it doesn't shake and rotates on a 14-foot diameter drive gear.
"It is one piece of metal lithed in Italy, the only place that has a lithe big enough, apparently," said Tiegs.
Why you should care
What makes the Discovery Telescope unique are the mechanisms on its backside.
In just five minutes, they can use a different tool to measure something else in the night sky on other telescopes that can take a day to swap that out.
"No one is mass-producing instruments like that. Each instrument you see on a research telescope is bespoke, one of a kind, usually a prototype," said Tiegs.
It was helpful as the telescope switched from searching for eco-planets and supernovas to asteroid YR 2024 and monitoring its path.
The Discovery Telescope gave key data which lowered the chances of an impact with earth in the next decade substantially, all thanks to its versatility.
After showing it off… it's time to cover the mirrors, tilt it back up and ready it for the next adventure, uncovering the mysteries of the universe from right here in Arizona.
One of the reasons the spot in Happy Jack was picked for telescope is that weather is cooperative more than 300 nights a year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
08-08-2025
- Time Magazine
How to Stargaze Like a True Astronomer
Human beings ought to be pretty good at stargazing by now, given that we've been doing it since we first emerged on the savannah. What was once a naked-eye exercise has become a high tech business of observing the skies with personal telescopes, university telescopes, radio telescopes, giant observatories, and space-based telescopes—not to mention cameras and other image processing equipment to capture and record what we see. The vast majority of stargazers are amateurs and hobbyists, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from the professionals—picking up tips from people who make their living studying the cosmos. With a suite of celestial entertainment lined up this month—including the full moon known as the Sturgeon Moon on Aug. 8 and 9; a 'planet parade, with six planets aligning in the sky from Aug. 10 through the end of the month; and the Perseid meteor shower peaking Aug. 12 and 13—here's what you need to know to make the most of your time studying the skies. Prepare your eyes Night vision and day vision are two different things. Your eyes do a remarkably good job of seeing in low-light conditions, thanks in part to what's known as rhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein found in the retina of the eye—specifically in the rod cells, which are responsible for our ability to see at night. The familiar experience of adjusting to the dark—with your vision steadily improving the longer you're in low-light conditions—is the result of rhodopsin building up in the retina. Even a little extraneous light, however, can interfere with this process. 'Rhodopsin gets destroyed by light,' says astronomer Taylor Kutra, a post-doctoral fellow at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. 'Every time you want to go stargazing you have to sit outside for 30 minutes [in advance] so your eyes can adapt.' That means no looking at your phone or your smartwatch either. That lights-out rule doesn't mean you have to go stumbling around in the dark. Red light does not interfere with rhodopsin, and while red flashlights are not commonly available, there are easy hacks to transform the color of an ordinary one. 'I have a roll of brake light tape that you can just get from a hardware store,' says Kutra. 'You can use it to convert any flashlight into a red flashlight. Another thing I see people do is use red dry erase markers, especially if you have a little flashlight with a plastic cover.' Get out of town All the red flashlights and rhodopsin in the world aren't going to help you much if you're doing your stargazing in a city swamped by light pollution. Urban skies afford you a view of only a tiny number of conspicuous cosmic objects—the moon, some planets, a very bright star or two. It's only when you get out to the countryside that the curtain is raised on the whole of the cosmos—including the summer's Perseid meteor shower and October's Draconids and Orionids showers. 'There are maps online that tell you what the level of light pollution is where you are, and where are the smart places to go near you,' says Kutra. 'I would probably drive an hour in the least populated direction before I would feel good about the light.' That's not to say cities and other light polluted areas close off the sky to you entirely. 'I've had very successful stargazing parties in downtown Toronto, where the light pollution is insane,' Kutra says. The key is lowering your expectations and making the most of that you've got. All by itself the moon can be remarkable. A simple pair of binoculars can reveal a lot of features on the lunar surface, especially if the moon isn't full, meaning sunlight is hitting it at an angle and casting sharp shadows that throw craters, rilles, and mountains into relief. Map your sky You can't properly stargaze if you don't know what you're looking for. A few familiar constellations like Orion and the Big Dipper may leap out at you, but the rest is an undifferentiated spangle of stars and worlds. There is a low-tech way and a high tech way to make sense of it all. The low tech way is known as a planisphere, a two-layer map with a paper or cardboard wheel in front that you can spin to select your location, the direction you're facing, the year and the time of day. Within an opening on the wheel will be the stars and nebulae and constellations in your field of view. 'If you look up planisphere PDF online you can just print it out. It's two pages of paper, and then you poke a hole in the middle and you stick like a little thumbtack thing through it, so that you can spin it,' says Kutra. 'Then you lay down, and everything that's in the window of the planisphere is in the sky above you.' Higher tech versions of planispheres are available as downloadable apps. They use the camera on the phone to search for and label objects. 'It's like augmented reality,' Kutra says. 'I really like using it to look for planets because they move throughout the year.' Cosmic camera For a lot of amateur astronomers, a night of stargazing is not complete unless you leave with pictures of the objects you've observed. Here too phone apps are available that make it possible to get remarkably sharp images of remarkably distant objects, often by 'stacking' photos—taking 10 or 20 images of the same object, then digitally aligning them and averaging them, so that the single image that results is sharper. It's best to mount your phone on a tripod, since your hands could never hold it steady enough for long enough. Much of this work is done not just with phones but with so-called smart telescopes, which can both automatically steer to a desired object and then photograph it and stack the images. Some of the formations amateurs can capture include the Horsehead Nebula, in the constellation of Orion, 1,300 light years away; the Lagoon Nebula, a star-forming region 4,000 light years away; and the Ring Nebula, 2,000 light years away, whose distinctive shape and bright colors are formed by a dying star expelling material into space. Don't go it alone Kutra strongly recommends checking out local astronomy clubs, including ones offered by nearby universities. 'It's super worth it,' she says. 'The events are free or pretty inexpensive. Not only do you see the object but you get an interpretation of what you're seeing. It's not like, 'This is the Orion Nebula, it's cool.' [You learn about] the dispersed emissions and the really hot stars that are forming there.' Being merely an amateur astronomer is no bar to being an exceedingly smart astronomer—one who not only looks at distant objects but understands them too.
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Yahoo
Double meteor shower will peak tonight: When and where to best see the shooting stars
NASA says you should give your eyes about 30 minutes to adapt to the darkness outside before you can see the meteors. Two meteor showers will peak at the same time in the early morning hours on Wednesday, a relatively uncommon astronomical occurrence caused by the Earth's orbit passing through two comets' debris trails. The Southern Delta Aquariid and the Alpha Capricornid showers have both been active since July 18 and July 12, respectively, but will peak late Tuesday night, around midnight, and continue into the early hours of Wednesday morning. These two showers combined could produce up to 20 to 30 meteors per hour, Nick Moskovitz, a planetary astronomer with the Lowell Observatory, estimates, according to NPR. Here's what to know about how to prepare for this summer's double meteor shower. What is a meteor shower? Meteorites are falling pieces of debris from comets, asteroids or meteoroids that land on Earth every day, according to NASA. When the material starts to vaporize in Earth's atmosphere, its trail can be visible to people on Earth. This is what we call 'shooting stars.' A meteor shower is what happens when there is a higher-than-usual number of meteors falling in a short period of time. What to know about the Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower The Southern Delta Aquariid shower has been active since July 18, but its peak will be late at night on July 29 until the early morning hours on July 30, NASA reported. It will remain active until about Aug. 12 and is best seen in the Southern Hemisphere. The meteor shower gets its name from the constellation Aquarius, which is where the shower originates, and the third brightest star in that constellation, which is the Delta Aquarii, reports. What to know about the Alpha Capricornid meteor shower The Alpha Capricornid shower is 'not very strong,' according to the American Meteor Society, and rarely showcases more than five meteors per hour. It has been active since July 12 and will stay active until Aug. 12. What is notable about the Alpha Capricornid shower is that it produces bright, slow-moving fireballs during its activity, which will be visible during its peak on July 29 and July 30. How to watch the meteor showers No special equipment is necessary to watch the meteor showers, but NASA does recommend that viewers try to get as far away from city lights as possible and put away their phones. 'In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors,' NASA says. 'Be patient — the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.' The best time to try to see the showers will be in the early hours on July 30, after midnight, astronomer Moskovitz told NPR. Stargazers in North America should try to find the best view of the southern part of the sky, specifically for the Southern Delta Aquariid shower, Moskovitz added. The moon is another light source that can sometimes make it hard to see meteor showers from Earth, especially if it's fully visible. Fortunately for stargazers, the moon will be in a Waxing Crescent Phase through Thursday night this week, which means it will be about 25% full, according to Astronomy magazine, so it should not impact the showers' visibility.
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Yahoo
Double meteor shower will peak tonight: When and where to best see the shooting stars
NASA says you should give your eyes about 30 minutes to adapt to the darkness outside before you can see the meteors. Two meteor showers will peak at the same time in the early morning hours on Wednesday, a relatively uncommon astronomical occurrence caused by the Earth's orbit passing through two comets' debris trails. The Southern Delta Aquariid and the Alpha Capricornid showers have both been active since July 18 and July 12, respectively, but will peak late Tuesday night, around midnight, and continue into the early hours of Wednesday morning. These two showers combined could produce up to 20 to 30 meteors per hour, Nick Moskovitz, a planetary astronomer with the Lowell Observatory, estimates, according to NPR. Here's what to know about how to prepare for this summer's double meteor shower. What is a meteor shower? Meteorites are falling pieces of debris from comets, asteroids or meteoroids that land on Earth every day, according to NASA. When the material starts to vaporize in Earth's atmosphere, its trail can be visible to people on Earth. This is what we call 'shooting stars.' A meteor shower is what happens when there is a higher-than-usual number of meteors falling in a short period of time. What to know about the Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower The Southern Delta Aquariid shower has been active since July 18, but its peak will be late at night on July 29 until the early morning hours on July 30, NASA reported. It will remain active until about Aug. 12 and is best seen in the Southern Hemisphere. The meteor shower gets its name from the constellation Aquarius, which is where the shower originates, and the third brightest star in that constellation, which is the Delta Aquarii, reports. What to know about the Alpha Capricornid meteor shower The Alpha Capricornid shower is 'not very strong,' according to the American Meteor Society, and rarely showcases more than five meteors per hour. It has been active since July 12 and will stay active until Aug. 12. What is notable about the Alpha Capricornid shower is that it produces bright, slow-moving fireballs during its activity, which will be visible during its peak on July 29 and July 30. How to watch the meteor showers No special equipment is necessary to watch the meteor showers, but NASA does recommend that viewers try to get as far away from city lights as possible and put away their phones. 'In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors,' NASA says. 'Be patient — the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.' The best time to try to see the showers will be in the early hours on July 30, after midnight, astronomer Moskovitz told NPR. Stargazers in North America should try to find the best view of the southern part of the sky, specifically for the Southern Delta Aquariid shower, Moskovitz added. The moon is another light source that can sometimes make it hard to see meteor showers from Earth, especially if it's fully visible. Fortunately for stargazers, the moon will be in a Waxing Crescent Phase through Thursday night this week, which means it will be about 25% full, according to Astronomy magazine, so it should not impact the showers' visibility.
