Lick Observatory

“ In a few years commenced the epoch-making work of Campbell, in the most refined and difficult problem of observational astronomy,—that of the measurement of the motion of stars to or from us. Through the application of photography and minute attention to details, this work of the Lick Observatory almost immediately gained a position of preëminence, which it maintains to the present time. If any rival is to appear, it will probably be the Yerkes Observatory. ”

“ The human mind at this one bound found opportunity to explore and to know a sidereal sphere more than twice as extensive as had ever been previously penetrated by the gaze of man.
Nor is this all. The ambition of American astronomers and American philanthropists has not been content with even the prodigious achievement of the Lick telescope. In recent years an observatory has been projected in connection with the University of Chicago, which has come almost to completion, and which will bear by far the largest telescopic instrument in the world. ”

“ Each person is shown the most interesting celestial objects, and the whole force of the Observatory is on duty, and spares no pains to make the visits both interesting and profitable.
James Lick planned wisely when he thought of his great telescope, even if he had no other wish than to be remembered and honored. Undoubtedly he did have other motives; for Professor Holden says, "A very extensive course of reading had given him the generous idea that the future well-being of the race was the object for a good man to strive to forward. ”

“ Professor Keeler resigned from the Lick Observatory staff on June 1, 1891, to succeed Professor Langley as director of the Allegheny Observatory, and professor of astrophysics in the Western University of Pennsylvania. The Allegheny Observatory has perhaps the poorest location of any observatory in this country for spectroscopic work. But in spite of this disadvantage Keeler's investigations continued and promoted the splendid reputation established for the observatory by his predecessor. ”

“ But before looking through the great tube, the professor, with quite unintended, but most dramatic effect, called our attention to a black-looking object at the base of the great pier, on which the telescope stands. It was like an altar, as we saw it in the dimness, but a lantern flash upon the front showed us it was a monument above the last resting-place of James Lick, by whose munificent bequest of seven hundred thousand dollars, the Observatory on Mount Hamilton, with all its wonderful instruments, has been established for all time. ”

“ In 1876 his devotion to astronomy led to his connection first with Chicago Observatory and for a time with the Lick Observatory in California. For his discovery, measurement and cataloguing of double stars, he was awarded the gold medal and made a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of England. ”

“ In a utopian republic of learning such individual variations would be carefully considered in the allotment of tasks. The association of the Lick Observatory with the University of California seems to approximate to ideal conditions, inasmuch as its highly trained astronomers are relieved of all academic duties but enjoy the privilege of lecturing to the students when the spirit moves them. ”

“ Miss Patty Wyatt.
Dear Miss Wyatt: I am informed that you are the correspondent for the "Saturday Evening Post-Despatch," and I take the liberty of calling your attention to a rather grave error which occurred in last week's issue. You stated that the Lick Observatory is in Dublin, Ireland, while, as is a matter of general information, it is situated near San Francisco, California. Professor James Harkner Wallis is not an Irishman; he is an American. Though he has carried on some very important investigations, he is the discoverer of neither the rings of Saturn nor the Milky Way. ”

“ For the efficient use of a great telescope its location must be in a region of great atmospheric calm, where the sky is clear and transparent, with little wind, and where the number of days and nights of a year during which such conditions do not exist is small. For some reason, the "seeing" conditions at Mount Hamilton during the day are not of the best; but at night excellent conditions are found on a large
Lick Observatory from the West. ”

“ The mountain peaks that cluster closely round the Lick Observatory in California are of different heights and were unnamed when the corps of observing astronomers took possession of the newly established station. ”

“ Common’s large instrument has not yet been fully tested; but it clearly gives promise of successful results, and encourages the hope that it will exert an influence on the progress of astronomy. Owing to the highly reflective quality of silvered glass, the 5-foot speculum has a far greater command of light (space-penetrating power) than the great objective mounted at the Lick Observatory. Mr. Common’s mirror may therefore be expected to grasp nebulæ, stars, satellites, and comets which are of the last degree of faintness and quite invisible in the Lick refractor. ”

“ A refracting telescope three feet in aperture collects rather more light than a speculum of four feet. [4] In this quality, then, the Lick instrument will have—besides the Rosse leviathan, which, for many reasons, may be considered to be out of the running—but one rival. And over this rival—the 48-inch reflector of the Melbourne observatory—it will have all the advantages of agility and robustness (so to speak) which its system of construction affords ”

“ Lick had been to found the observatory on the borders of Lake Tahoe, but he grew dissatisfied with this site and, shortly before his death, made provisional arrangements for placing it on Mount Hamilton. In 1879 preparations had so far advanced that it became necessary to decide whether this was really a suitable location. I had grave doubts on the subject. A mountain side is liable to be heated by the rays of the sun during the day, and a current of warm air which would be fatal to the delicacy of astronomical vision is liable to rise up the sides and envelope the top of the mountain. ”

“ And beside the enjoyment of all this entrancing spectacle of celestial beauty, the fortunate astronomer sits at his telescope and discovers—always he discovers.
This, or something like it, is a very popular conception of an astronomer's experiences and duty; and consequently many, when they are told that 'discoveries' are not made at Greenwich, are inclined to consider that the Observatory has failed in its purpose. An astronomer without 'discoveries' to his record is like an angler who casts all day and comes home without fish—obviously an idle or incompetent person. ”

“ It is quite possible that there are many people whose sole opportunity of looking through a telescope is the penny peep through the instrument of some itinerant showman, who may have seen more of these than an active astronomer in a lifetime; while as to 'discoveries,' these lie no more within the scope of our national observatory than do geographical discoveries within that of the captain and officers of an ocean liner.
If it is not to afford the astronomer beautiful spectacles, nor to enable him to make thrilling discoveries, what is the purpose of Greenwich Observatory? ”

“ An object possessing no greater brilliance than is thus indicated can only be perceived by a good telescope under the most favourable circumstances. When, however, the difficulties of seeing the satellite are enhanced by the fact that it is located close to so brilliant a globe as the great planet, then it is only the exceptional powers of the Lick telescope, and the exceptional excellence of the situation in which the telescope is placed, which have enabled it to be detected at all. ”

“ The building is by far the largest on the ground, but in little accord with the popular idea of an astronomer as perpetually looking through a telescope, carries but a single dome; its best rooms being set apart as 'computing rooms,' for the use of those members of the staff who are employed in the calculations and other clerical work, which form, after all, much the greater portion of the Observatory routine.
An observer with the transit instrument, for instance, will take only three or four minutes to make a complete determination of the place of a single star. ”

“ The minute satellite much nearer to the planet than any of the others, which Mr. Barnard discovered with the Lick telescope in 1892, is called the fifth, although in the order of distance it would be the first. In size and importance, however, it can not rank with its comparatively gigantic brothers. Of course, no amateur's telescope can afford the faintest glimpse of it. ”

“ That stern disciplinarian asked what business the assistant had to be there on his free night, and on being told he was 'searching for new planets,' he was severely reprimanded and ordered to discontinue at once. A similar energy would not meet so gruff a discouragement to-day; but the routine work so fully occupies both staff and telescopes that an assistant may be most thoroughly devoted to his science, and yet pass a decade at the Observatory without ever seeing those 'show places' of the sky which an amateur would have run over in the first week after receiving his telescope. ”

“ The Royal Observatory at Greenwich has always been, and is now, better equipped in some respects than any other observatory, as might be expected from its deservedly great reputation; but to possess the largest existing telescope has never been one of its ambitions. The instruments in which it takes most pride are remarkable for their steadiness and accuracy rather than for their size;not having suitable telescope at Greenwich and at that time the best telescope possessed by the observatory was not, in Airy’s opinion, large enough to detect the planet with certainty. ”

“ Most of our densely-peopled towns and cities, which abound in narrow streets and lanes, are generally unfit for good observatories, unless at an elevated position at their extremities. Public observatories, where a great variety of instruments is used, and where different observers are employed, require buildings of larger dimensions, divided into a considerable number of apartments. The observatory of Greenwich is composed principally of two separate buildings—one of which is the observatory properly so called, where the assistant lives and makes all his observations ”

“ The light in which he regarded his office may best be expressed in his own words:—
'The Observatory was expressly built for the aid of astronomy and navigation, for promoting methods of determining longitude at sea, and (as the circumstances that led to its foundation show) more especially for determination of the moon's motions. All these imply, as their first step, the formation of accurate catalogues of stars, and the determination of the fundamental elements of the [112] solar system. These objects have been steadily pursued from the foundation of the Observatory; in one way by Flamsteed ”

“ Around this were pierced a dozen shafts, emerging at different heights, but all near the summit, and all so far outside the central plateau as to leave the solid foundation on which the Observatory was to rest, down to the very centre of the planet, wholly undisturbed. Through each of these, ascending and descending alternately, pass two cars, or rather movable chambers, worked by electricity, conveying passengers, instruments, or supplies to and from the most convenient points in the vast structure of the Observatory itself. ”

“ The Observatory domain at present is fully two hundred yards in greatest length, with an average breadth of about sixty. Nearly the whole of this accession took place under the directorates of Pond and Airy. The present instruments are, therefore, as a rule, the more modern in direct proportion to their distance from the Octagon Room—the old original Observatory. There is one notable exception. The very first extension of the Observatory buildings, made in the time of Halley, the second Astronomer Royal, consisted in the setting up of a strong pier, to carry two quadrant telescopes. ”

“ I had resolved aforehand his kn—sh talk should not move me; showed him that all the instruments in the Observatory were my own; the mural arch and voluble quadrant having been made at my own charge, the rest purchased with my own money, except the sextant and two clocks, which were given me by Sir Jonas Moore, with Mr. Towneley's micrometer, his gift, some years before I came to Greenwich. This nettled him; for he has got a letter from the Secretary of State for the Royal Society [55] to be Visitors of the Observatory, and he said, "as good have no observatory as no instruments." ”

“ His confidence was justified, for in 1898 Aitken, with the Lick telescope, saw and measured the distance of the extremely minute companion—distance 0.17", p. 177°.
Rigel has been suspected of a slight degree of variability. It is evidently a star of enormous actual magnitude, for its parallax escapes trustworthy measurement. It can only be ranked among the very first of the light-givers of the visible universe. ”

“ This building is at the southern end of the narrow passage, 'the wasp's waist,' which connects the older Observatory domain with the newer. It is the first building we come to in the south ground. The computations of the department are carried on in the south wing of the new Observatory.
It will be seen from the photograph that the [211] instrument is much larger, heavier, and less easy to move in azimuth than the old altazimuth. ”