The Machinery of Night

Posted 9:43 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Dawn Patrol

Sunrise at Lick Observatory, June 1995

This photo may look a little crooked, as if the camera was not being held straight. That's just an optical illusion created by the slope of the ridge line in the background. Yes.

This was taken from Mt. Hamilton Rd. just east of the 3m telescope (above me on my right, out of the picture). The main building is visible on the peak in the background.

The large white dome on the left side of the main building holds the historic 36" refractor. That link says that it's the second-largest refractor in the world, second only to the 40" refractor at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. That's what I always thought, too, but Wikipedia (WARNING! WIKIPEDIA!) says that the second largest is the 1m (39") Swedish Solar Telescope in the Canaries. Its design is not a traditional refractor design, although it does have a 1m lens. So we'll give it an asterisk.

BUT MY POINT, before I got bogged down in minutiae, was that the tiny white dome on the right side of the main building holds a 40" reflector. Yes, the tiny dome holds a bigger telescope than the huge dome. Bigger in diameter, that is, which is the important parameter. The refractor is of course much longer than the reflector, which is why it needs all that dome.

Through the miracle of Blogger, this post has gone back in time. It was posted on Friday, though it is in fact Sunday as I write. Do not attempt to adjust your browser. We control the horizontal. We control the vertical. And we control time. So don't piss us off.

Labels: California, Foto Friday