Looking up at the stars

The Lick Observatory is located on Mount Hamilton, approximately 4200 feet above San Jose, California. The Observatory, owned by the University of California, was built in 1888 and was the first permanently occupied mountaintop observatory in the world. The Observatory was soon home to a 36" refracting telescope, the largest in the world for over a century. The fifth moon of Jupiter was discovered through the telescope in 1892 more than 200 years since Galileo discovered the first four. 

the 36-inch dome

The "town" of Mount Hamilton, which at one time included a cafe,
post office, houses for researchers, and a school for their kids.

South San Francisco Bay in the distance

The Observatory is open to the public most of the year, but you only get to look through the telescope on a special tour. As if booking tickets to a rock concert, I logged onto the ticket system one minute after sales began and managed to get two tickets for the end of June. The first eight dates had already sold out! We headed up the windy road to Mount Hamilton and ate our dinner overlooking San Jose and South San Francisco Bay. Our tour started at 6:30 pm and would last over five hours as we learned about the telescopes, life at the observatory, the eccentric man behind the place. And last but definitely not least, we got to look at the stars. 

In addition to the 36 inch, the Observatory is also home to four active telescopes and two historical ones. The Shane 3-meter telescope is the main workhorse of the observatory. The telescope is booked every night for the next 18 months! The 3-meter is a reflecting telescope, meaning it uses a mirror to generate an image rather than lenses like the Giant Refractor. The mirror was a test blank made by Corning Labs, the makers of Pyrex, and was acquired by UC for a song at $50,000 in the 1950s. They promptly insured it for $2 million! The 3-meter is used for adaptive optics and for determining the chemical composition of stars. It also has a laser that detects the distortion in the atmosphere that makes stars twinkle. It is lovely to see a twinkling star, but for astronomers that results in a blurry image. By correcting for the distortion, they can get a clear image of the star and make precise measurements. 

The 3-meter reflecting telescope

The opening of the dome spins to where it is needed; the green
carriage is the old elevator used to get to the top of the dome.

Circumambulating the dome

The other telescope we learned about is the automated planet finder. This is a relatively new telescope at Lick that works on its own every night to try to find planets that could support life. Astronomers tell it which stars to look at and the telescope measures the velocity changes in the star's movements, indicating that a planet could be pulling on it. 

home of the automated planet finder

The whole place was made possible by James Lick, who made the largest scientific donation in history - $700,000 or $1.2 billion in today's money. Lick made his early money as a piano maker in the U.S. and South America, but his fortune ballooned when we arrived in San Francisco months before gold was found at Sutter's Mill. He became a real estate tycoon in San Francisco and seemingly started the escalation of Bay Area home prices that continues today. Lick was somewhat of a curmudgeon but wanted to leave a legacy in the Bay Area before he died. His original plan was to build gigantic statues of himself and his parents at the mouth of the Golden Gate. Some friends dissuaded him, suggesting the statues would be targets in times of war. His second scheme to build the largest pyramid on Earth at 4th and Market in downtown San Francisco was also shot down. Finally, some science friends suggested he build the largest observatory ever built and that seemed to satisfy his need for grandness. Lick died before the Observatory was fully operational, but his body was buried beneath the Great Refractor before the floor was installed. Soon after, the telescope saw first light and the rest is history. 

James Lick, the man with the money

It was a really fabulous night for looking at the stars. The staff opened the dome and the cold air came rushing in. It is no wonder they do not do public tours in the winter! The staff then proceeded to move the telescope to the first viewing location entirely by hand. The telescope is balanced perfectly and allows them to move the 57-foot long, 25,000 pound telescope like it is a piece of plastic. It was spectacular. The floor of the dome can move up and down, but the State of California won't certify it for use with visitors so we had to use a portable staircase to look through the telescope. When the dome was built, the floor was moved by water power. After a bit of searching, the staff focused in on a binary star. It looked about like you would expect...two stars. :) The second item was the M5 cluster, which was beautiful. It was inspiring to be looking through a telescope that has made many discoveries and advanced the field of astronomy by leaps and bounds over the last century. If you ever get a chance, I would highly recommend a visit. We were a bit sleep deprived at work on Monday but it was totally worth it!