Front of the Lick Observatory main building. The 75-foot dome is located at the south end of the building on the right. This dome houses the 36-inch refractor. The large dome, housing the 36-inch refractor, was completed in 1887 by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, and weighs 90 tons. The Lick Observatory is located in the Diablo Mountain Range east of San Jose, California. The dome was advanced for its time in that its design compensated for metal expansion. The circular floor rises and descends through approximately 17 feet to follow the eyepiece of the 58-foot telescope tube. While electric motors now provide power, the original hydraulic cylinders still support and move the floor. 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.
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
