If E.T. has a home, Steve Vogt wants to find it. This week, the planet-hunting scientist and his team of University of California-Santa Cruz astronomers are assembling a sensitive new telescope on the summit of Mount Hamilton that will search the skies for any galactic neighbours. The long-awaited arrival of the Automated Planet Finder at Lick Observatory is a milestone in the search for a world that could sustain life. It brings us one step closer to answering the profound question: Are we alone?
A time-lapse movie, distilled from over 200,000 images, condensing a year's construction of a telescope dome into 3 minutes. The dome, which will house the 2.4-meter Automated Planet Finder (APF), is part of University of California's Lick Observatory, atop Mt. Hamilton, in the Diablo Range, east of San Jose. APF is devoted to the discovery of planets around other stars.