889-Lick Observatory

In 1892, the world's largest telescope, the Lick Observatory's 36-inch refracting telescope,

made the news when E.E. Barnard discovered Amalthea, the fifth moon of Jupiter.

In 2025, this historic telescope made the news again, when on Christmas morning,

winds of 114 miles an hour blew off a three-ton piece of the shutter on its dome.

After considering building statues of himself and his parents on the coast of California,

large enough to be seen by ships at sea, James Lick instead decided to build the world's

largest telescope. The result was a 25,000-pound 36-inch refracting telescope, four-feet-in-diameter

and 57-feet long. It took many years and 18 attempts to transport the glass lenses from where

they were cast in Paris, France, to Boston, Massachusetts, where they were polished and

finally to the top of 4,200-foot high Mount Hamilton, where they arrived by horse and carriage.

At the time, the world's observatories were located in cities. An important part of its legacy

is that the Lick Observatory was the world's first mountaintop facility where astronomers could

live and work under conditions where their telescopes were away from lights and smog.

When commissioned in 1959, the 120-inch Shane Reflecting Telescope at Lick Observatory

was the second largest reflecting telescope in the world. Lick Observatory is owned and operated

by the University of California and is still used by students and professors to do astronomical

research nearly every night. Astronomers at Lick Observatory have discovered planets outside

our solar system, supernova, active galactic nuclei and more. The Adaptive Optics Research

pioneered at Lick Observatory, helped in the creation of the twin giant 10-meter telescopes

that sit atop monochia in Hawaii. For travelers in the night, this is Dr. Al Grower. Stay tuned.