Class Turns into Zombie Horde

Today began with a long drive which nobody was awake for, sweet. We got up to Mt. Hopkins and took a quick look around the Smithsonian station at the base of the mountain before heading up to the summit to see the 6.5 meter telescope. Along the way up the twisty dirt road we had a great view of the mountainside, we also saw a mountain deer halfway up!

My anticipation grew with every pop of the ears. Upon reaching the ridge about a third of the way up we could see the telescope housing looming at the top.

Upon reaching the summit we toured the facility, it was so interesting! I learned about how they assembled the telescope and how they had to modify the observing doors for the current MMT because the new one wouldn't fit. It was interesting to me to be able to see the imperfections on the 6.5 meter mirror (burn marks, bubbles in the polymer) and that they didn't affect the quality of the image it produced. Once our tour was finished we had a quick lunch and photo session. I found it amazing to look down upon the road we just conquered.

After the photo op we made our way to "the ridge" which was about a quarter of the way down the mountain and housed 4 other telescopes, 3 smaller reflecting telescopes and a gamma ray telescope. I found the gamma ray telescope to be the most intriguing because of the odd look of it.
Here in this video you can see its mesmerizing powers and ability to turn my clasmates (and evenutally me) into a horde of zombies!

It was also really cool to take photos at F2 (2 times the focal length) because it gave a great reflection image which you can see here:

The bright green images are my sunglasses reflecting!

At night we had dinner and a show at Delectible Me while watching a jazzercise/TaeBow class. It was exquisite!