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Image / Lick Observatory Main Building and Great Dome

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Title
Lick Observatory Main Building and Great Dome
Contributor
Gordon, John C. (photographer) (Creator)
Contributing Institution
San José State University, Special Collections and Archives
Collection
John C. Gordon Photographic Collection
Rights Information
Copyright is assigned to the San José State University Library Special Collections & Archives. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Special Collections & Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. Copyright restrictions also apply to digital reproductions of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.
Description
View of the main building of Lick Observatory and the Great Dome, which held the 36-foot refractor telescope.
The Lick Observatory building was designed by architect S.E. Todd of Washington, DC, in the Italian Renaissance style with the use of deep entablatures and moldings, and a pediment over the west door. The construction of the Lick Observatory building began in January 1880 under the direction of Thomas Fraser, James Lick's agent. To level the top of Mount Hamilton, Fraser had the top thirty feet of the mountain removed with black powder explosives. Workers then moved, by hand, an estimated 40 thousand tons of rock they had loosened. Masons built a kiln next to a clay bed near the summit and fired the bricks for the building. All of the heavy materials for the dome and telescope mounting were hauled up the mountain by wagon team and lifted into place with simple mechanical aids. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/butowsky5/astro4b.htm
Scanned with Microtek Scanmaker 1000XL Pro; as a 600 dpi TIFF image in 8-bit Grayscale. Auto Level image processing applied and compressed into JPEG format using Photoshop CS3.
Type
image
Format
image/jpeg
8 x 10 in.
Identifier
islandora:78_1550
filename: jcg_lick_observatory_004
islandora: 78_1550
Subject
Technology
Astronomical observatories
Lick Observatory
Place
Mount Hamilton Range
California
Relation
John C. Gordon Photograph Collection

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