Lowell Observatory

I stopped in the city of Flagstaff for a night’s rest. After I had my dinner, although I felt very tired from the two time zone changes, I thought that I should still go see at least something here in the city. I didn’t really research that much about Flagstaff, since I knew I would not have enough time to spend here. Additionally, it was already past eight in the evening by the time I was done. The sun had already gone down but that is actually perfect for what I think is Flagstaff’s more significant landmark. Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory. I knew about when I was a kid and I was very interested in astronomy. I knew that Lowell Observatory is in Flagstaff and I was very excited to finally get a chance to visit.

Although Lowell Observatory is open in the day time, it is actually best to visit in the evening. The observatory gets its name from Percival Lowell who proposed that a Planet X should be there. After the planets Uranus and Neptune were discovered, it was found out that those planets don’t seem to be following their predicted orbit, almost as if there was something affecting their orbits. Just like how Neptune was discovered, Percival Lowell, proposed that there is a Planet X which was affecting their orbits. Lowell never got to find out what was this Planet X was, that was left to Clyde Tombaugh, who was using the telescopes here in Lowell Observatory to find this elusive planet. As you might know, this was an extremely tedious process because it involves taking photos of the same patch of sky in different days and comparing them to see if anything changed. Soon enough Clyde Tombaugh saw a tiny light move from one frame to the next. This was planet X.

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