[Exi-bay-chat] Lick Observatory

[Achut Reddy]

I've done it many times, though I've gone up many more times on bicycle!
It's also a great motorcycle ride.  By car it's ideal if you have an open air 
roadster.  It's a twisty mountain road, and according to legend there are 
exactly 365 turns -- one for every day of the year.

I highly recommend the "Music of the Spheres" summer concert series at the 
observatory.  These are typically light classical or accoustic concerts in a 
cool venue (it was even cooler a few years ago when they used to hold the 
concert IN the actual telescope dome, but they stopped that for the usual 
liability reasons).

Note that besides the observatories themselves, there is not much in the way of 
facilities -- no gas station, restaurants, stores, etc.  There is a gift shop 
where you can get nice astronomy prints (my favorite is a shot of half dome, 
taken from the observatory, which has line of sight on a clear day!).

James Lick himself is buried at the base of the 36" telescope... not a bad grave 
marker!

Achut

Anton Sherwood wrote:
> Dad's coming to visit, and he suggested driving up to Lick Observatory.
> Have any of you done that?  How long does it take?  Is the ride likely 
> to be hard on one's digestion?
>