Lick Observatory
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The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory, owned and operated by the University of California. It is situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, USA. The observatory is managed from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where its scientific staff moved in the mid-1960s.
 The main observatory building and the North (small) Dome, home of the Nickel Reflector | |
| Organization | University of California |
| Location | San Jose, California, USA |
| Coordinates | Altitude||1,283 m (4,209 ft)
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|Weather||300 clear nights/year
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|Webpage||[mthamilton.ucolick.org]
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!colspan="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="lightgreen"|Notable Telescopes
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|C. Donald Shane telescope||3 m reflector
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|James Lick telescope||91 cm refractor
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|Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope||76 cm reflector
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|Anna L. Nickel telescope||1 m reflector
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|Crossley telescope||90 cm reflector
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|Carnegie telescope||50.8 cm twin refractor
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Contents
Early historyLick Observatory was the world's first mountain-top observatory.The observatory was constructed between 1876 and 1887, from a bequest from James Lick. In 1887 Lick's body was buried under the future site of the telescope, with a brass tablet bearing the inscription, "Here lies the body of James Lick." Before construction could begin, a road to the site had to be built. All of the construction materials had to be brought to the site by horse and mule-drawn wagons, which could not negotiate a steep grade. To keep the grade below 6.5%, the road had to take a very winding and sinuous path, which the modern-day road (CA-130) still follows. Tradition maintains that this road has exactly 365 turns. (This is approximately correct, although uncertainty as to what should count as a turn makes precise verification impossible). Even those who do not normally suffer from motion-sickness find the road challenging. The road is closed when there is snow at Lick Observatory.
 The 36 inch (91.44-cm) refracting telescope on Mt. Hamilton was Earth's largest refracting telescope during the period from when it saw first light on January 3, 1888, until the construction of Yerkes in 1897. In April, 1888, the observatory was turned over to the Regents of the University of California, and it became the first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory in the world. The location provided excellent viewing performance due to lack of ambient light and pollution; additionally, the night air at the top of Mt. Hamilton is extremely calm, and the mountain peak is normally above the level of the fog that is often seen in the San Francisco Bay Area. When fog does roll in below the peak, light pollution is cut to almost nothing. Current stateWith the growth of San Jose, and the rest of Silicon Valley, light pollution became a problem for the observatory. In the 1970s, a site in the Santa Lucia Mountains at JunÃpero Serra Peak, southeast of Monterey, was evaluated for possible relocation of many of the telescopes. However, funding for the move was not available, and in 1980 San Jose began a program to reduce the effects of lighting, most notably replacing all streetlamps with low pressure sodium lamps. The result is that the Mount Hamilton site remains a viable location for a major working observatory. Asteroid San Jose was named, by the International Astronomical Union in honor of the city's efforts to reduce light pollution. [UCSC, Lick Observatory designate asteroid for the city of San Jose]In 2006, there are 23 families in residence, and the UCSC students who are coming to study can use dormitories. The little town of the Lick Observatory staff atop Mount Hamilton has its own police and the post office. Significant discoveries
The following astronomical objects were discovered at Lick Observatory:
 EquipmentCurrent equipment and locations:
FootnotesSee alsoExternal links
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