James lick telescope
Created: 1889
Nickname: Great Lick Refractor Creator: University of California and Alvan Clark Location: San Jose, California Stats: Lens: 91.44cm (diameter) Light Collecting Area: 6567cm squared Light Gathering Power: 33,445x human eye Focal Length: 17.37m Focal Ratio: f/19 Wavelength: Optical Type: Refractor |
History:
The eccentric businessman James Lick commissioned the building of a telescope in his name. He wanted to leave a monument to his legacy and decided to use his wealth to help advance an area of scientific knowledge. At the time of its creation, the James Lick Telescope was the largest refracting telescope in the world. It was decided that the telescope should be placed atop Mt Hamilton in San Jose in order to reduce atmospheric distortion. The success of the telescope was a key factor in driving the move to build telescopes in mountainous areas rather than cities. The James Lick Telescope is a huge telescope; 57-feet long and weighing in at 25,000lbs. The 91.44cm lenses were transported from France to California in the late 1800s through a long and arduous journey. In fact the whole process of constructing the telescope took so long that James Lick died before it was finally complete. One of the earliest notable discoveries made using the telescope was the discovery of a fifth moon orbiting Jupiter. This was somewhat unexpected as it had been over 200 years since Galileo had discovered Jupiter's fourth moon. The telescope is also responsible for at iconic series of images of the moon that are used to show lunar phases. More recently, the telescope was used in 1999 to provide a live camera feed of Mercury transiting across the sun. |