Saturday Evening Talk & Telescope Viewing (June 16)

The Rise of the San Gabriel Mountains, a "planetary" geology lecture by Tanya Atwater, an Emeritus Professor of Tectonics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Atwater is renown for her pioneering work piecing together the regional plate tectonics of Southern California. She will explain the history of the plate motions that forced up the block of crust beneath Mount Wilson, creating the perfect conditons for the observatory where we discovered our place in the Universe. Dr. Atwater has developed extraodinary computer graphics to help us visualize the changing landscape.

After the lecture, our historic 60-inch Telescope, which astronomer Harlow Shapley used to find our place in the Milky Way Galaxy, will be opened for attendees to view through. This is contingent on the weather. The number of objects visitors will get to see will depend on the number in attendance. We want everyone to get a chance to look through a famous telescope.