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Mount Wilson Observatory

By: Robin McCollum and Laura Karabasz. Mount Wilson Observatory. 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.

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Mount Wilson Observatory

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  1. By: Robin McCollum and Laura Karabasz Mount Wilson Observatory

  2. 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)

  3. 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

  4. 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 Humasondiscovered the presence of the redshift that indicated the universe is expanding • Closed in 1986 but reopened in 1992 with adaptive optics

  5. Star Cluster

  6. 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

  7. The central part of the Great Nebula in Andromeda

  8. 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

  9. How it Works • The Wilson telescope relies on adaptive optics to make a better picture without distortion due to the Earth’s atmosphere

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