BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Los Angeles -- Griffith Observatory

CA -- Los Angeles -- Griffith Observatory:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. GRIFO_130723_070.JPG: 1931 - 1955 Key scenes from the classic motion picture "Rebel Without a Cause" were filmed at Griffith Observatory in spring 1955. Although many movies have been filmed at Griffith Observatory, "Rebel Without a Cause" was the first to portrait the observatory as what it is and to contribute positively to the observatory's international reputation. This monument acknowledges Griffith Observatory's long and continuous involvement with Hollywood film production by remembering the young star of that motion picture. James Dean
2. GRIFO_130723_179.JPG: Foucault Pendulum: The Foucault (foo-koh) Pendulum recreates an 1851 demonstration by French physicist Jean Bernard Leon Foucault that gave the first direct proof that Earth rotates on its axis. The Observatory pendulum is a 240-pound partially-hollow, gun-metal sphere suspended form a 40-foot steel wire. The wire is attached to the rotunda ceiling in a way that allows the pendulum to swing freely. A ring magnet above the ceiling keeps the pendulum in motion without influencing the direction of its swing. The pendulum knocks over a peg roughly every seven minutes. From our perspective, the direction of the pendulum's swing appears to change. What we are really seeing is the motion of the Earth, rotating the peg into the path of the swinging pendulum. At the North and South Poles, it takes one day for the pendulum's direction of swing to appear to rotate 360 degrees. As you move from the poles toward the equator, this apparent rotation takes longer because of the change in latitude. This means it also takes longer for each peg to move into the pendulum's path. At the equator itself, there is no apparent shift, and no pegs would ever be knocked down. In Los Angeles, the pendulum's apparent direction of swing rotates through a full circle in just over 42 hours, so the dial in the pit is divided into 42 hourly divisions.
3. GRIFO_130723_207.JPG: The Ballin Wall Murals: Artist Hugo Ballin celebrated the progress of science through his spectacular art. These eight panels represent what he called the "Advancement of Science from Remote Periods to Present Times." Each one shows how science and engineering changed throughout history up to the time Griffith Observatory opened to the public in 1935. The fields shown are aeronautics, navigation, civil engineering, metallurgy and electricity, time, geology and biology, mathematics and physics, and astronomy (shown above). Hugo Ballin (1879-1956) painted murals for Burbank City Hall and County-USC Medical Center. He also worked in the film industry as an art director and directed silent movies.
4. GRIFO_130723_221.JPG: The Ballin Ceiling Mural: In ancient times, people used myths to understand what they saw in the sky. In the murals overhead, 1930s painter Hugo Ballin illustrated those early stories using a parade of Classical figures. Atlas holds the zodiac signs, followed by the Pleiades, and then Jupiter and his thunderbolts. Venus and the four seasons are next, preceding Saturn, Mercury chasing Argos, and an observer next to a woman holding the Star of Bethlehem. The mural continues on to the Moon and a comet.
5. GRIFO_130723_225.JPG: A Great City Needs A Great Park: Colonel Griffith J. Griffith got rich through mining and real estate. In return, he decided to give something back to his adopted hometown of Los Angeles. Inspired by his travels in Europe, he declared that great cities had great parks, and he wanted Los Angeles to have the greatest one in the U.S.. So he donated 3,015 acres for use as a free public park. When Colonel Griffith made his offer to Los Angeles in 1896, the city's population was roughly 200,000. The land he wanted to donate was a sparsely developed area a mile outside of the city limits. The Los Angeles City Council worried people would not travel that far and new roads would cost too much. Fortunately, the council voted to accept the gift. Today, Griffith Park sits at the center of a busy metropolitan area of 10 million people.
6. GRIFO_130723_228.JPG: Changing People's Perspectives: Colonel Griffith loved astronomy. He often met with local astronomers, including George Ellery Hale, who had established an observatory on Mount Wilson in 1904. When he looked through its 60-inch telescope (then the world's largest), Colonel Griffith realized that telescopes and astronomy could alter a person's perspective on the world. He decided to construct an observatory and give it to the people. It would enable every one to have an experience similar to his own. Although Colonel Griffith was unable to fulfill that vision during his lifetime, his will helped others make it happen. Colonel Griffith wanted his facility built on Mount Hollywood, overlooking Los Angeles. It was intended to provide an unobstructed view of the sky and a panorama of the growing metropolitan area. It was to feature free public telescopes, a "Hall of Science" filled with exhibits and a theater for educational films (this was before planetariums were invented). Colonel Griffith also left funds to build the Greek Theatre, where the public could enjoy musical and dramatic performances. A Visionary Spirit: Colonel Griffith J. Griffith was born in Wales in 1850. He came to America as a teenager and worked as a journalist and mining adviser. Colonel Griffith made his fortune in Mexico's silver mines and invested in Southern California real estate. He moved to Los Angeles in 1862 and spent the rest of his life here until his death in 1919, he worked to improve the city and Griffith Park, where his statue stands at the east entrance.
7. GRIFO_130723_232.JPG: "If all mankind could look through that telescope, it would change the world!" -- Griffith J. Griffith
8. GRIFO_130723_300.JPG: The monumental sculpture called the "Aztec Calendar Stone" should really be called the "Stone of the Fifth Sun." To the Aztec, it symbolized the age in which they lived, which was preceded by four other mythical ages. Each previous age ended in cataclysmic destruction. Twelve feet across and made of olivine basalt, the stone weighs 24 tons. It was unearthed in 1790 and is now the centerpiece of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. This replica, a 1/4-scale, was created by noted American artist David V. Villasenor.
9. GRIFO_130723_310.JPG: The Big Bang: The Beginning of Time: The universe blossoms like a skyrocket in an incredibly hot explosion that expands both space and time. After ten billionths of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, all of the universe we see today is no larger than the size of a small car. In the next three minutes, the nuclei of hydrogen, helium, and lithium form in a soup of free electrons. For 400,000 years, the expanding, cooling universe is a brilliant, blinding fog of light.
10. GRIFO_130723_327.JPG: The First Candles in the Darkness 400 million years after the Big Band: Pockets of gas molecules collapse to form cold, dark clouds. Eventually, the dense concentrations heat up and give off a warm glow of dim light. These become the first stars and the earliest wisps of galaxies. Time goes by, and the universe continues to expand. Star and galaxy formation signals the creation of the first new light since the Big Band. As the young galaxies grow, massive black holes affect where stars gather and how galaxies evolve.
11. GRIFO_130723_336.JPG: The Milky Way Galaxy: 1 billion years after the Big Bang: Billions upon billions of galaxies form as the universe ages and expands. Our Milky Way Galaxy is one of them. Some of its first stars come from dwarf galaxies that mingle together. These collisions eventually create the spiral shape of our galaxy. The mixing of stars, gas, and dust sets off bursts of new star formation in the infant Milky Way.
12. GRIFO_130723_343.JPG: Threads and Ribbons: 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang: Dark matter is shaping clumps of gas, clusters of stars, and groups of galaxies into a cosmic web. Giant clusters of clusters of galaxies lie at each intersection in the web. These superclusters are the largest structures in the universe. Their galaxies glow with bursts of star formation that light up the cosmic network.
13. GRIFO_130723_346.JPG: Lights Full On 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang: Galaxy collisions are common in the early universe. These violent encounters trigger bursts of star formation. They also fatten the massive black holes hiding in galaxy cores. That action creates quasars, which are bright, active regions with huge jets at the hearts of galaxies. These quasars, for a time, outshine all the stars in their galaxies.
14. GRIFO_130723_360.JPG: Making a Neighborhood 9.1 bullion years after the Big Bang: The solar system is born. The Sun is part of a generation of stars that form in clouds of gas and dust in the Milky Way Galaxy. The planets of the solar system, their moons, the smaller worlds, and interplanetary debris all come from the same birth cloud as the Sun.
15. GRIFO_130723_364.JPG: Impacts Call It an Era 9.9 billion years after the Big Bang: Collisions are common in the early solar system as pieces of planet-building debris orbit the Sun. These impacts help build worlds. The scars visible on the Moon are from the last major collisions in the era of planet formation. They coincide with the production of the oldest rocks on Earth.
16. GRIFO_130723_372.JPG: Getting a Life 10.2 billion years after the Big Bang Life appears on Earth less than a billion years after our planet formed. The first organisms are tiny microbes that originated in the oceans. Life thrives in the seas.
17. GRIFO_130723_376.JPG: Hardbodies 13.1 billion years after the Big Bang: About 3 billion years after the first life appears on Earth, all animals still live in the sea. A rich and diverse population of hard-bodied creatures suddenly spreads through the oceans. Their shells will become early fossils.
18. GRIFO_130723_379.JPG: High Plains Drifters 13.35 billion years after the Big Bang: Life on Earth expands its habitat from the ocean to the land. Some amphibians join insects and plants and adapt to life on dry land. They claim the new territory and set the stage for new forms of life to evolve.
19. GRIFO_130723_383.JPG: Bright Young Stars 13.63 billion years after the Big Bang: Star formation continues in the Milky Way Galaxy as new stars are born in clouds of gas and dust. The Pleiades are a group of hot young stars that lie in the direction of the constellation Taurus. They first begin to shine just before the dinosaurs die out on Earth. The earliest mammals are learning to adapt to climate changes on our planet.
20. GRIFO_130723_389.JPG: Rocking the Cradle 13.69 billion years after the Big Bang: The Orion Nebula is a cloud of gas and dust about 1,350 light-years from Earth. It still cradles some of the youngest stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Many are still wrapped in the shells of gas and dust that gave them birth. Those clouds also hold the building blocks of planets, and some of the nebula's stars may have their own solar systems forming around them.
21. GRIFO_130723_390.JPG: Distant Ancestors 13.696 billion years after the Big Bang: About 3.6 million years ago, one of our early cousins leaves a footprint in fresh volcanic ash near Laetoll, Tanzania. It will be another million years before humans begin using stone tools.
22. GRIFO_130723_394.JPG: Our Cosmic Connection 13.7 billion years after the Big Bang: About 13.7 billion years after the Big Bang started the expansion of the universe, an upright hominid steps onto the surface of the Moon. He leaves behind a footprint. It's one small step across time and space.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Griffith Observatory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Griffith Observatory is located in Los Angeles, California, United States. Sitting on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood in L.A.'s Griffith Park, it commands a view of the Los Angeles Basin, including downtown Los Angeles to the southeast, Hollywood to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. The observatory is a popular tourist attraction that features an extensive array of space- and science-related displays.

History:

The land on which the observatory stands was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Col. Griffith J. Griffith in 1896. In his will, Griffith donated funds to build an observatory, exhibit hall, and planetarium on the donated land. Construction began on June 20, 1933 using a design developed by architect John C. Austin based on preliminary sketches by Russell W. Porter. The observatory and accompanying exhibits were opened to the public on May 14, 1935. In its first five days of operation the observatory logged more than 13,000 visitors. Dinsmore Alter was the museum's director during its first years. Today, Dr. Ed Krupp is the Director of the Observatory.

Exhibits:

The first exhibit visitors encountered in 1935 was the Foucault pendulum, which was designed to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. The exhibits also included a twelve-inch (305 mm) Zeiss telescope, a solar telescope, and a thirty-eight foot relief model of the moon's north polar region.
The Griffith Observatory after renovations, June 2007.

Col. Griffith requested that the observatory include a display on evolution which was accomplished with the Cosmochron exhibit which included a narration from Caltech Professor Chester Stock and an accompanying slide show. The evolution exhibit existed from 1937 to the mid 1960s.

Also included in the original design was a planetarium. The first shows covered topics including the Moon, worlds of the solar system, and eclipses.

During World War II the planetarium was used to train pilots in celestial navigation. The planetarium was again used for this purpose in the 1960s to train Apollo program astronauts for the first lunar missions.

The planetarium theater was renovated in 1964 and a Mark IV Zeiss projector was installed.

Renovation and expansion:

The observatory closed in 2002 for renovation and a major expansion of exhibit space. It reopened to the public on November 3, 2006, retaining its art deco exterior. The $93 million renovation, paid largely by a public bond issue, restored the building, as well as replaced the aging planetarium dome. The building was expanded underground, with completely new exhibits, a caf�, gift shop, and the new Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater. The Caf� at the End of the Universe, an homage to Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is one of the many caf�s run by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. One wall inside the building is covered with the largest astronomically accurate image ever constructed (152 feet long by 20 feet (6.1 m) high), called "The Big Picture" (http://bigpicture.caltech.edu), depicting the Virgo Cluster of galaxies; visitors can explore the highly detailed image from within arm's reach or through telescopes 60 feet (18 m) away. The 1964-vintage Zeiss Mark IV star projector was replaced with a Zeiss Mark IX Universarium. The former planetarium projector is part of the underground exhibit on ways in which humanity has visualized the skies.
Side view of the Observatory after renovations in 2007

Since the observatory opened in 1935, admission has been free, in accordance with Griffith's will. Tickets for the show Centered in the Universe in the 290-seat Samuel Oschin Planetarium Theater are purchased separately at the box office within the observatory. Tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Children under 5 are free, but are admitted to only the first planetarium show of the day. Only members of the observatory's support group, Friends Of The Observatory, may reserve tickets for the planetarium show.

Centered in the Universe features a high-resolution immersive video projected by an innovative laser system developed by Evans and Sutherland Corporation, along with a short night sky simulation projected by the Zeiss Universarium. A team of animators worked more than two years to create the 30-minute program. Actors, holding a glowing orb, perform the presentation, under the direction of Chris Shelton.

A wildfire in the hills came dangerously close to the observatory on May 10, 2007.

On May 25, 2008, the Observatory offered visitors live coverage of the Phoenix landing on Mars.

Filming location:

Film

The observatory was featured in a number of scenes in the James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause; a bust of James Dean was subsequently placed at the west side of the grounds. It has appeared in several movies:

* Rebel without a Cause
* The Terminator (revisited as a ruin in 2009's Terminator Salvation)
* Dragnet (1987)
* The Rocketeer
* The End of Violence
* Midnight Madness
* Bowfinger
* Flesh Gordon
* War of the Colossal Beast
* The People vs. Larry Flint
* Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
* House on Haunted Hill (1999 remake)
* Queen of the Damned
* Transformers (2007 live-action film)
* Yes Man
* Earth Girls Are Easy

Television

The Observatory has appeared in episodes of the following TV shows:

* 24 (Day 1 3:00pm-4:00pm; aired on March 19, 2002)
* Adventures of Superman (first episode, as Jor-El's laboratory on Superman's home planet Krypton; some other episodes, as the Metropolis observatory.)
* Angel (episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been," with Angel wearing a red jacket in homage to James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause character).
* Beverly Hills, 90210 ("Rebel with a Cause", episode 13)
* CHiPs
* Danny Phantom (The Amity Park Observatory modeled on The Griffith Observatory.)
* MacGyver (pilot episode)
* Mission: Impossible (opening pilot episode)
* Moonlight
* Quantum Leap (Goodbye Norma Jean)
* Remington Steele
* Rocky Jones, Space Ranger
* Star Trek: Voyager (two-part episode "Future's End")
* The Man from U.N.C.L.E
* The New Adventures of Wonder Woman between 1977 and 1979.
* The Simpsons (duplicated as Springfield Observatory)
* The Wonder Years.

Other media

* Was a filming location for the music video for "Rush Rush" by Paula Abdul which starred Keanu Reeves and was directed by Stefan W�rnitzer. This video was based on Rebel Without a Cause.

Popular culture references:

Comics

The James Dean memorial at the Griffith Observatory is an important landmark that memorializes Dean's classic movie Rebel without a Cause.

In Bill Griffith's comic strip Zippy the Pinhead, the cynical Griffy can occasionally be found in Griffith Observatory, aiming its telescope down into the valley to afford himself a view of the comings and goings in Hollywood.

In the Marvel series Runaways, the James Dean memorial is often used as a meeting point for the six teenagers, as it is the same distance from all of their houses.

Video games

In the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game this landmark is featured and is very similar to the real life Griffith Observatory. The observatory is a playable area in the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines video game. Also, in the Future Cop: LAPD video game, the observatory and the whole Griffith Park are the setting for the first mission of the game, on which the observatory was taken over a villain and turned the telescopes into plasma cannons.

Music

The song Observatory Crest by Captain Beefheart may refer to the location of the Griffith Observatory. The song includes the lyric "...drive up / and watch the city / from Observatory Crest."

Other

A Lego model of this building is on permanent exhibit at Legoland California in the Southern California section of Miniland. It has also been featured in the comic strip "Spiderman." In "Macross Frontier," Episode 03, two characters hold a conversation in a future replica of the Griffith Observatory.

Movies

In the movie Bowfinger with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, film producer Bowfinger (Martin) has been secretly filming a movie without Kit Ramsey (Murphy) knowing about it. The film climaxes as Ramsey is running through the Griffith observatory. The camera crew follows him by filming the shots from the surveillance room, trying to catch him saying the phrase, "Gotcha Suckers!" to end the film.

The Observatory makes an appearance in The Rocketeer as the setting for a showdown between Nazi spies and The Mob.

TV Shows

In the Star Trek Voyager episode Future's End, Voyager is pushed back in time to 1996, to try and correct errors to the time line. Rain Robinson, played by Sarah Silverman is working for the SETI project in the Griffith Observatory, and notices Voyager in orbit, and tries to contact them with the standard SETI greeting, and eventually helps the crew to recover what was stolen, and escape from earth.
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