www.montereycountynow.com SEPTEMBER 11-17, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 time the organization was founded. Weaver was early in his career, but he had already cultivated a habit of asking directly for what he wanted. Over breakfast at a conference hosted by the American Astronomical Society, Weaver approached Martin Schwarzschild, a celebrity in astrophysics (the Schwarzschild criterion, describing the stability of stellar gas in certain conditions, is named after him) and at the time, the director of the Princeton University observatory. Weaver asked Schwarzschild for a perfectly smooth, high-quality mirror— and Schwarzschild said yes. The perfectly flat mirror was handed over from Princeton and NASA to MIRA on permanent loan, but immediately the team set to work on making it suitable to their telescope design—specifically, cutting a hole in the middle of it. “They risked turning one of the best mirrors ever made into a hunk of glass—but it all turned out fine,” Cotton says. In recounting the history of MIRA, both Weaver and Cotton offer a matter-of-fact play-by-play of events. Need a mirror, or funding to make that mirror into a telescope, or a dark mountaintop on which to place that telescope? Just ask and ye shall receive. MIRA built its telescope over several years and it was first deployed in Cachagua in 1977. By the late ’70s, MIRA scientists were getting their own images, doing original astronomical research. But Weaver had even bigger dreams. He says he simply asked the U.S. Forest Service for permission to build an observatory on top of Chews Ridge, near the lonely peak of Tassajara Road in the Los Padres National Forest. And the pattern repeats: The USFS said yes, and granted a permit. “We hired a surveyor, and he and a couple of us with machetes cut a little path,” Weaver says. In 1982, the MIRA team broke ground on the Oliver Observing Station, a remote outpost accessible by traveling on six miles of dirt road with 4,000 feet of elevation gain, about an hour’s drive from Carmel Valley Village. To get the telescope and its special mirror up to the new site, it had to be disassembled, then reassembled with the help of cranes. Finally, by June 1984, the observing station was dedicated and the telescope was ready for action. “Arguably,” Cotton says, “this is the best location in the continental United States.” The best, astronomically speaking, means dark. By definition, that means isolated, free of light pollution from nearby civilization. The top of Chews Ridge is remote. The base of the telescope is at exactly 5,000 feet above elevation. There’s Big Sur to the south, generating no light. The Salinas Valley to the east and the distant glow of the San Jose metro area to the north have brightened since MIRA moved in here in 1984, but the light is still negligible. And of course to the west is the dark expanse of the Pacific Ocean. This is beneficial not just because it’s dark, but because of climactic factors. Smooth air flows above the marine layer over the ocean, what Cotton describes as “really stable air, not turbulent at all.” That makes for sharper images. Being in a remote place—a microwave dish provides high-speed internet—means the Oliver Observing Station must be self-reliant (and the property requires an onsite caretaker to manage it). Astronomers must be jacks of all trades; they spread gravel on the road (and encourage visitors to drive slowly, keeping dust down to avoid impacting the telescope). They are judicious with water usage, using rainwater collected in a cistern. They wear warm clothes; a giant insulated water tank heats the building interior if there is excess power generated by a solar array outside. “Being out in the middle of nowhere, we have to generate all of our energy onsite,” Cotton notes. When it’s his turn to operate the telescope, Cotton prefers to stay at the observatory for two to three weeks at a time. (Many of his colleagues, he says, prefer to drive to and from town every couple of days because, due to water conservation, they aren’t taking showers.) While much of the work of astronomy takes place later, in a lab in Marina, the task of operating the telescope is a practice in patience and attention. Daniel Cotton opens the protective door in front of the 36-inch telescope at the Oliver Observing Station on Chews Ridge (the exterior is shown below). The roof above the telescope is on wheels and rolls backward to open up visibility to the sky for observation. SARA RUBIN SARA RUBIN
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