Griffith Observatory

THE pristine lawn spreads before you like a quad that's misplaced its college. The six smart guys of the Astronomers Monument glower stonily in your general direction. Beyond them waits the triple-domed Griffith Observatory, our freshly squeegeed window to the universe, or, as observatory director Edwin C. Krupp likes to say, "the hood ornament of Los Angeles."

One night on Mt. Wilson about 1908, a short, powerfully built man with a handlebar mustache looked through the largest telescope in the world. What he saw transformed him, and would put Los Angeles at the forefront of a movement to make astronomy the people's science. We may never know whether Col. Griffith J. Griffith saw the rings of Saturn or another celestial object with the then-new 60-inch reflector telescope, but we can be sure that it inspired his vision of a world-class observatory for the people of Los Angeles, allowing the masses a glimpse of the heavens.

A scene depicting the total destruction of Santa Monica - complete with fiery meteorites, land masses shearing off into the sea and swarms of flying monkeys - might seem better suited to a Hollywood disaster movie than a planetarium show. But "Time's Up," opening at the Griffith Observatory on Thursday, is not the kind of planetarium show you might remember from grade school. The imagery goes way beyond the traditional static view of the stars, while the presentation forgoes canned narration and gesturing at constellations.

Re "Fans bid Howser farewell," Jan. 16 When Huell Howser passed away, he apparently made it very clear to his friends and loved ones that he did not want a memorial service. It's a shame that L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge felt that he knew best and organized a memorial service for Howser at the Griffith Observatory. Was it well attended? Certainly; people loved Howser and wanted to honor him. Was it respectful? Absolutely not. LaBonge showed little respect to Howser by blatantly disregarding his final wishes.

cheese n. museum guide who is manager for the day. "The cheese says to kick out before the fire marshal comes." * crack the dome phr. open the copper dome that houses the celestial telescope at night to ventilate hot air trapped during the day. "Time to crack the dome, the omigod says the bigwigs are sweating." * kick out v. request that visitors line up outside before a show if the number of persons inside exceeds 100, the maximum allowed by city fire code. * omigod n.

"Time's Up" by the numbers 50 million: pixels displayed on the dome 350,000-400,000: planetarium visitors annually 300: seats in the theater 256: computers in the observatory render farm 33: minutes in "Time's Up" 32.2: speakers (32 speakers plus two subwoofers) 25: computers required for show playback 2: Digistar laser projectors 1: Universarium star projector   FOR THE RECORD: Griffith Observatory: In the May 29 Calendar section, an information box accompanying a story about the new “Time's Up” show at the Griffith Observatory said that it would be playing Mondays through Fridays at 6:15 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. Those times are for Wednesdays through Fridays; there are no showings on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Get a close-up look at Saturn and its spectacular rings this weekend, and you won't need special eclipse glasses to see them. Telescopes at the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park will be pointed at Saturn because it's one of the brightest things in the night sky at the moment. "Mars and Saturn are nearly twins in brightness this week," the observatory's Sky Report says. Saturn also made news this week after the Cassini spacecraft found evidence of large methane lakes on its moon Titan.

Skip the holiday parties Monday night and head instead to Griffith Observatory for a bash to mark the last lunar eclipse of the decade. OK, there might not be eggnog, but there will be free telescopes to peek through and lectures about the sky event, which organizers say should be remarkable -- if the weather cooperates. The observatory will be open from 8 p.m. Monday to 1:30 a.m. Tuesday with telescopes (not the huge ones) set up for viewing, though the eclipse also will be visible with the naked eye. The "show" will start about 10:30 p.m. as the eclipse begins, and totality will start at 11:41 p.m. Observatory director E.C. Krupp plans to don a wizard costume to "welcome" the moon back to the night sky after the eclipse.

Times reader "phreader" captured this photo of L.A.'s iconic Griffith Observatory during a recent trip. "Visited family in L.A. in mid-January and caught 85-degree weather, fantastic sunsets and scenes like this," the photographer said. "Golden memories for sure. " Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park opened May 14, 1935. The observatory sits on 3,015 acres of land donated to the city of Los Angeles by Griffith J. Griffith, a mining and real estate mogul. Griffith donated money to build the observatory to make astronomy more accessible to the public.

The transit of Venus sounds like a bus stop at some extraterrestrial outpost, but it's actually what happens in the sky when the planet Venus moves across the face of the sun. What NASA calls "the rarest of planetary alignments" will begin Tuesday afternoon until sunset -- and then won't be seen again for 105 years. "In a way, you could call a solar eclipse a transit of the moon," says Tyler Nordgren , astronomer, author and associate professor of physics at the University of Redlands.

Everyone thought they knew what Huell Howser would have said if he'd been standing outside Griffith Observatory just before sunset Tuesday afternoon. If he'd climbed the observatory steps in a short-sleeved button down, khakis and work boots and taken in the hundreds who had come to celebrate him, a crowd stretching in glorious honeyed light beyond the Astronomers Monument and into the overflowing parking lot. If he'd known that his fans had started arriving about 9 a.m. for a public memorial due to start at 3:30 p.m., that among them were teenagers and nonagenarians, some of whom had driven for hours -- from the far-flung California cities and small towns he'd visited, from the mountains and deserts he loved.

Do I turn you on to cool stuff or what? Last week, a great shave. This week, the cosmos. There isn't really anyplace I won't take you. OK, I won't take you to Chuck E. Cheese's - that'd just be cruel, pepperoni in the very corpuscles of the place. But any other destination is up for grabs, including the far outer suburbs of human understanding. Tonight, Griffith Observatory, which reminds us that we are all - most probably - made of stardust, the scatterings of the big bang that occurred 14 billion years ago. Whew, I knew I felt something.

In the end, chances of a Maya apocalypse Friday night were infinitesimal - in fact nonexistent, according to a group of NASA experts. But that didn't stop some Angelenos from cashing in on the notion of "no tomorrow. " Across the city, businesses offered bomb shelters, T-shirts, "Mayan sweepstakes" and bucket list raffles. Nightclubs threw apocalypse-themed DJ parties. Even T.G.I. Friday's got into the spirit with a "Last Friday" celebration at the Hollywood & Highland Center. Griffith Observatory took an aggressive stance against the doomsayers, holding a special gathering with educational talks and lectures debunking the apocalypse and extending its hours to one minute past midnight.

Any of you worried about 12/21/12 because it's the supposed “end of the world”?  We hope not, but in any case, the Griffith Observatory will be here to allay your fears. The observatory has announced that it “will attempt to dispel misguided concerns regarding the 'End of the World' by staying open late the evening of Friday, December 21, 2012, until one minute after midnight.” If it's still around, of course. “The Observatory normally closes at 10:00 p.m. but will remain open an added 121 minutes to demonstrate that claims regarding the Maya calendar, planetary alignments, rogue planets, galactic beams, and other related phenomena have no basis in fact,” the announcement continues.

I was lying next to the Older Man in bed, our limbs barely touching in the nighttime heat. We'd come back to my place after a hillside party off Mulholland Drive, a raucous bash crowded with his music industry colleagues. Woozy from shots of Bacardi and too much time in the hot tub, I whispered a question that had been swirling in my head for weeks. "So, what are we?" The Older Man rolled over and exhaled, his eyes half-closed. It was after 3 a.m., and he was leaving on a business trip the next day. "Look, I'm going to be in meetings all week," he said, in quiet tones that I mistook for tenderness.

The shuttle Endeavor wowed Southern California on Friday with fly-bys of landmarks including Dodger Stadium, Griffith Observatory and Disneyland before landing at LAX. A striking photo by Gary Friedman in Saturday's Times showed the piggybacked shuttle and 747 passing yet another L.A. icon: the Hollywood sign. It was an image that others tried, but were unable, to capture. That may be why it raised some skepticism. Andy Serrano of Los Angeles was among the readers who emailed to question the veracity of the photo.

Cellphones barely get signals in parts of Los Angeles, yet it seemed appropriate that Edward James Olmos, formerly Adm. William Adama of "Battlestar Galactica," spent the cocktail hour at the Griffith Observatory's 75th birthday party sending text-messages into space. Olmos had been contacting a friend, Atlantis astronaut Garrett Reisman, and periodically checking his BlackBerry for a response. More than 400 Friends of the Observatory came to the May 15 gala, highlighted by the premiere of "Light of the Valkyries."

It wouldn't be a trip to Southern California without a visit to Disneyland. The Anaheim park is one of several Los Angeles-area landmarks that space shuttle Endeavour will fly over before landing Friday morning at Los Angeles International Airport, according to NASA. Also on deck: the Getty Center, Griffith Observatory and the California Science Center, the retired orbiter's new permanent home. The Los Angeles flyover will mark the end of Endeavour's farewell aerial tour which is slated to begin at dawn Wednesday when it departs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The saying "once in a blue moon" refers to something that's exceedingly rare. But you'll have two chances to see this lunar occurrence tomorrow, when a so-called blue moon comes into view. The first opportunity will be in the morning -- yes, the morning -- as the blue moon is setting for the day, said Anthony Cook, astronomical observer at Griffith Observatory. Look for the early-morning blue moon between 6:30 and 7 a.m., he said. Later in the day, you'll get a second chance to see the blue moon, when it rises at 7:13 p.m. So what is a blue moon?