MOUNT WILSON OBSERVATORY

By: Robin McCollum and Laura Karabasz

History Founded by George Ellery Hale The Mount Wilson Solar Observatory

was first funded by the Carnegie Institute of Washington

Located on top of Mount Wilson (5,715 feet)

60 inch (1.5 m) Hale Telescope Largest telescope in the world at its first

light on December 8, 1908 Allowed the pioneering of spectroscopic

analysis, parallax measurements, nebula photography, and photometric photography

1992, adaptive optics system increased the potential resolution from 0.5-1.0 arc second to 0.07 arc seconds

Largest telescope devoted to public use

100 inch (2.5 m) Hooker Telescope Resolving power of 0.05 arc seconds Took the title of world’s largest telescope upon first light on

November 2, 1917 1919, equipped with an optical astronomical interferometer

which was used to the measure the precise diameter of Betelgeuse, the first time for a star.

1935, silver coating replace with aluminum coating which reflected 50% more light

Hubble determined that some nebulae were actually galaxies outside our own Milky Way

Hubble and Humason discovered the presence of the redshift that indicated the universe is expanding

Closed in 1986 but reopened in 1992 with adaptive optics

Star Cluster

Other Telescopes Solar telescopes to study helioseismology Several arrays that on July 9, 2003, ISI recorded

the first closure phase aperture synthesis measurements in the mid infrared

A 24-inch (610 mm) telescope fitted with an infrared detector used by Eric Becklin in 1966 to determine the center of the Milky Way for the first time

1968, 62-inch (1.6 m) reflecting dish  the first large-area near-IR (2.2 µm) survey of the sky was conducted by Gerry Neugebauer and Robert B. Leighton

The central part of the Great Nebula in Andromeda

Significant Discoveries Discovered that the Universe was larger

than imagined and it was expanding Sun was just another star in the Milky

Way Sun is two-thirds away from the center

of our galaxy Discovered other galaxies

How it Works The Wilson telescope relies on adaptive

optics to make a better picture without distortion due to the Earth’s atmosphere