Roden Crater

[Paul Taylor]

Since we had the eclipse yesterday - it reminded me of this photo-set I took.

Several years back I did some work at an interesting "Natural Observatory" jobsite designed by James Turrell. Basically, it is an installation built inside a extinct volcano that uses Earth's alignment to view certain celestial events / objects. The elliptical opening (which is a perfect circle in the viewing chamber due to the angle of the keyhole shaped tunnel) is the "window" and there is a several hundred yard perfectly aligned keyhole shaped tunnel and a precision optic ground by U of A that projects the cosmos onto a multi-ton block of polished marble in the "viewing room" underground. The staircase is cast bronze. I snapped a few quick pics there with the camera I had at the time (Sony Nex 3 & kit lens.)

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Wow, what an incredible place. Did you see James Bond hanging around?

 

[Ralph Turner]

Superb images, Paul. The vignette in the first image lends itself well to the curvy nature of the subject.

 

[Paul Taylor]

Rumor has it that when they were in the early stages of the build - several three letter agencies shows up due to the resemblance of a underground missile silo.

It really was a neat place. I was up there for a few days. Maybe I will be lucky to see it again and actually have time to take photos.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Quite interesting!

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

Gosh. That's a remarkable installation. Has a distincly sci-fi feel to it, could be out of the Foundation series by Asimov in fact!
Did you get to see the sky projection at night? I'd imagine it would be quite something. Great photos too. I have a Nex5 incidentally - handy little camera. I also use it for film scanning.

 

[Paul Taylor]

Gosh. That's a remarkable installation. Has a distincly sci-fi feel to it, could be out of the Foundation series by Asimov in fact!
Did you get to see the sky projection at night? I'd imagine it would be quite something. Great photos too. I have a Nex5 incidentally - handy little camera. I also use it for film scanning.

It wasn't operational when I was there unfortunately and I think it still isn't to date.

I still have a nex-3, my nex-5 died, and my nex-7 is on negative scanning duty actually lol.

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

I think it still isn't to date.

I still have a nex-3, my nex-5 died, and my nex-7 is on negative scanning duty actually lol.

Great minds think alike. I'd kind of like a bit more resolution than my 16mp, and considered trying to sort out adaptors for my Nikon D7100 with it's 24MP, but it all got a bit hard. I use a 'vintage' Pentax slide copier, complete with extension bellows, for scanning, currently with a Pentax mount Sigma 70-300 - which as weird as it sounds does a pretty good job.

 

[James Evidon]

The site is currently closed to the public according to the Roden Crater website:

"...As construction on Roden Crater is ongoing, it is presently closed to the public. Fundraising is underway to complete the construction and open Roden Crater to the public. Please consider supporting the work’s completion by becoming a Friend of Roden Crater…."

What an amazing place!

 

[Brian Moore]

Wonderful set of photos, Paul. A belated welcome to RPF, by the way.