Griffith Observatory Gets The Big Picture

When Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory reopens to the public on November 3 after a $93-million and nearly five-year renovation, it will feature the biggest astronomical image ever seen. Twenty feet tall and 152 feet long, The Big Picture, a true-color panorama of the core of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, covers an entire wall of the Richard and Lois Gunther “Depths of Space” Exhibit Hall. Data for the image—from a patch of sky roughly the size of your index finger held a foot away from your face—were taken by a team headed by Caltech Professor of Astronomy George Djorgovski using the Samuel Oschin Telescope as part of the Palomar-Quest digital sky survey, a collaboration between Caltech and Yale.

This view of “Markarian’s Chain” of galaxies, with the giant ellipticals M 84 and M 86 on the right, and the merging pair of galaxies NGC 4435 and NGC 4438 near the center, occupies 16.7 by 10 feet of wall space.

The full story of this pharaonic undertaking—the enameled porcelain panels will far outlast their creators—will be told in the next issue of E&S. —DS