The History Of The Palomar Observatory
The study of the night sky has captivated humans for thousands of years. It was a way of life, humans could not have lived without their precious guide. The stars were used as a reference for navigation, used in architectural builds, and were worshipped as gods. We can thank our ancestors from way back for settling our continent. They couldn’t have done it without the night sky. As humans began to get more curious about how life worked around them, prominent people, known as astronomers (Eratosthenes etc.), began to dive more in depth to what was really out there. Ever since this point in time, humans have gone to great lengths to explore space and bring back extraordinary discoveries that benefit us and generations to come. With technologies and new instruments created to pursue the science of Astronomy, there was a necessity to construct buildings to study the subject. These buildings are called observatories.
The Palomar Observatory proves to be one of the leading observatories because of its many advancements to the study of Astronomy. George Ellery Hale was the founder and creator of the Observatory in the mid “30s ,” despite the challenges he faced from the Great Depression and World War II. Hale graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and proceeded to get a 6 million dollar grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Then, Hale got together a large group of engineers and passionate astronomers to establish a building site, begin construction and create the dome, mounting, and the Hale telescope, a 200-inch reflecting telescope. Today, the observatory is run by Caltech, founded by Hale.
The observatory lies atop of Palomar Mountain in San Diego County California. The observatory remains active, continually producing new discoveries and still looks relatively unchanged. It boasts an age of about 100 years old. George Ellery Hale wasn’t just the creator and founder of Palomar, he also founded three other observatories. Yerkes, Mount Wilson, and Kenwood Astrophysical observatory. Hale wanted to distinguish Palomar from his other works and did this through it’s architectural design. Hale hired Russell W. Porter to be the chief constructor. Porter took his job seriously and spent time at the build site to get a feeling for the topography and where observatory equipment would be placed. Porter decided on a building style called Art Deco. This style was extremely popular in the Carolina area in the 20s and 30s.
Art Deco is known for its simplistic and modern appearance. These are Porters own words and description of his work. “Aside from the principle that a building should express the functions of the mechanism that it covers, I have felt the importance of expressing extreme simplicity along with the feeling of permanency.” The unique architectural design of Palomar Observatory is another reason why this observatory stands out amongst the crowd.The telescopes located in the observatory are quite impressive. They have had many famous astronomers and scientists look through them. There are three operational telescopes in the building, the 200-inch Hale Telescope, 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope, and the 60-inch Telescope.
