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Daniel, you've missed one of the *great* roads in the U.S. ;D Anyone near should ride Palomar road..
About all I know of the Palomar Road is that it features on those YouTube "motorcycle crash videos" that I try to avoid looking at. Is it otherwise a decent (good view; good pavement) road to ride?
Daniel, should have gotten a pic of the 3.5m telescope at Sunspot.
Yerkes observatory in Wisconsin is a good one too. Lick houses a 36 inch refractor. Yerkes has a 40 inch lens. Both refractors lenses were ground by Alvan Clark, the finest lens grinder who ever lived. Both telescopes are old now and the glass is beginning to sag. So the lenses are rotated periodically in an attempt to counteract that. They are best used to view planets, for which they are superb even today.I have a 29 inch reflector inside a 20 ft dome in upstate NY. I have looked through a 61 inch scope on Mt Lemmon north of Tuscon. That telescope was built to examine lunar landing spots. The folks in charge added an adaptive optics secondary which allowed the image to remain rock solid. Jupiter and Saturn looked much better than any photograph I have ever seen. Detail so fine only the eye can see. I understand you can rent a big scope on Mt Wilson.
The air currents of a regular dome cause turbulence in the telescope, which is not good. So, it is best to just expose the whole thing to ambient air. The largish diameter of the surrounding dome is made to 'smooth' the airflow around the telescope. The proof of the pudding is when you get pictures from the ground that are as good as the ones from Hubble ;)
Are there any astronomy listserves that folks here would recommend?
I have one of my own. A 3 meter (diameter) observa-dome with motorized turret. One of my retirement projects. Photo of same model.
I'm not sure what a listserves is but I check into cloudynights.com every day. Great info and forums there.Bill