RON HENGGELER

A view of the distant San Jose during our drive up to the summit of Mount Hamilton and the Lick Observatory

 

The Observatory is more than 20 miles from downtown San Jose along Mt. Hamilton Road at an elevation of 4200 feet. The road follows a gradual grade laid out over a century ago for horses and carts. It has many sharp curves and is quite narrow in places.

The first sighting of the distant Lick Observatory seen from the base of the foothills.

I've placed a red dot over the Lick Observatory situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton at 4200 ft.

The view of the far-distant Lick Observatory at the beginning of a 20 mile long hairpin switchback road.

I've placed a red dot over the Lick Observatory situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton at 4200 ft.

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.

Lick Observatory is the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory. The observatory, in a Classical Revival style structure, was constructed between 1876 and 1887, from a bequest from James Lick of $700,000 (approximately $22 million in 2014 US dollars).

The red dot shows the Observatory's location on the summit.

Lick, although primarily a carpenter and piano maker, chose the precise site atop Mount Hamilton and was buried there in 1887 under the future site of the telescope, with a brass tablet bearing the inscription, "Here lies the body of James Lick".

Lick additionally requested that Santa Clara County construct a "first-class road" to the summit, completed in 1876. 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 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.

Entrance to the Lick Observatory

A self-portrait in the mirror at the final hairpin turn into the parking lot in front the the Lick Observatory

 

On the wall inside the main entrance hangs the original Seismographic Record of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

Detail of the original Seismographic Record of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

The bronze bust of James Lick located in the main entrance of the Lick Observatory

James Lick (August 25, 1796 – October 1, 1876) was an American carpenter, piano maker, and patron of the sciences. At the time of his death, he was the wealthiest man in California, and left the majority of his estate to social and scientific causes.

Lick arrived in San Francisco in January 1848, bringing with him his tools, work bench, $30,000 ($784,700 with inflation to 2012) in gold, and 600 pounds (275 kilograms) of chocolate. The chocolate quickly sold, and Lick convinced his neighbor and friend in Peru, the confectioner Domingo Ghirardelli, to move to San Francisco, where he founded the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company.

The hallway leading to the Great Lick Refractor

My photo of a wall display showing Saturn as seen by the Great Lick Refractor

 

My photo of a wall display showing the moon as seen by the Great Lick Refractor

 

My photo of a framed picture on the wall in the hallway . . .its sign reads:

This wonderful fanciful design for the dome of the Great Refractor was summited by James Lick's foreman and longtime friend Thomas Fraser. This architectural configuration was probably too technically challenging to execute at the time. Fraser long outlived Lick and served as an extremely effective foreman on the observatory project.

My photo of a framed photo on the wall . . .its sign reads:

36-inch Great Lick Refractor

The scientific utility of the Great Refractor has diminished with the passage of well over a century. Yet it remains an impressive monument to the innate creativity and wonder which humans bring to the ongoing study and exploration of our Universe. Few who see it - or better, who view the heavens through it, are left unaffected by this amazing 19th century engineering and scientific masterpiece.

My photo of a framed picture on the wall . . .its sign reads:

Early Tourism

Lick Observatory was the first permanently occupied mountaintop observatory in the world. It was equipped with the largest telescope, and quickly became a major tourist attraction despite the long and arduous trip. Visitors would usually travel by stage from San Jose, and some stayed overnight at the Smith Creek Hotel.

From earliest times the Great refractor has been available for public viewing. This reflects James Lick's generous and deep concern for the betterment of the citizenry.

The road was built to enable mules to haul the heavy construction materials to the summit by wagon. A century ago the road was rated one of the best in the state. Now, many enjoy the scenic drive, and in recent years it has become very popular with cyclists.

 

The garden courtyard behind the Lick Observatory with a bronze bust of the Reverend Hamilton.

James Lick arrived in San Francisco in January 1848.

Upon his arrival, Lick began buying real estate in the small village of San Francisco. The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento a few days after Lick's arrival in the future state began the California Gold Rush and created a housing boom in San Francisco, which grew from about one thousand residents in 1848 to over twenty thousand by 1850. Lick himself got a touch of "gold fever" and went out to mine the metal, but after a week he decided his fortune was to be made by owning land, not digging in it. Lick continued buying land in San Francisco, and also began buying farmland in and around San Jose, where he planted orchards and built the largest flour mill in the state to feed the growing population in San Francisco.

In 1861, Lick began construction of a hotel, which became known as Lick House, at the intersection of Montgomery and Sutter Streets in San Francisco. The hotel had a dining room that could seat 400, based on a similar room at the Palace of Versailles. Lick House was considered the finest hotel west of the Mississippi River. The hotel was destroyed in the fire following the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Following the construction, Lick returned to his San Jose orchards. In 1874, Lick suffered a massive stroke in the kitchen of his home in Santa Clara. The following morning, he was found by his employee, Thomas Fraser, and taken to Lick House, where he could be better cared for. At the time of his illness, his estates, outside his considerable area in Santa Clara County and San Francisco, included large holdings around Lake Tahoe, a large ranch in Los Angeles County, and all of Santa Catalina Island, making Lick the richest man in California.

In the next three years, Lick spent his time determining how to dispense with his fortune. He originally wanted to build giant statues of himself and his parents, and erect a pyramid larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza in his own honor in downtown San Francisco. However, through the efforts of George Davidson, president of the California Academy of Sciences, Lick was persuaded to leave the greatest portion of his fortune to the establishment of a mountain top observatory, with the largest, most powerful telescope yet built by man.

In 1874 he placed $3,000,000 ($60,034,475 with inflation) at the disposal of seven trustees, by whom the funds were to be applied to specific uses. The principal divisions of the funds were:

$700,000 to the University of California for the construction of an observatory and the placing therein of a telescope to be more powerful than any other in existence

$150,000 for the building and maintenance of free public James Lick Baths in San Francisco

$540,000 to found and endow an institution of San Francisco to be known as the California School of Mechanics Arts

$100,000 for the erection of three appropriate groups of bronze statuary to represent three periods in Californian history and to be placed before the City Hall of San Francisco

$60,000 to erect in Golden Gate Park, a memorial to Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star Spangled Banner".

Lick had had an interest in astronomy since at least 1860, when he and George Madeira, the founder of the first observatory in California, spent several nights observing. They had also met again in 1873 and Lick said that Madeira's telescopes were the only ones he had ever used. In 1875, Thomas Fraser recommended a site at the summit of Mount Hamilton, near San Jose. Lick approved, on the condition that Santa Clara County build a "first class" road to the site. The county agreed and the hand built road was completed by the fall of 1876.

On October 1, 1876, Lick died in his room in Lick House, San Francisco. In 1887, his body was moved to its final resting place, under the future home of the Great Lick Refracting Telescope.

The body of James Lick lies beneath the refractor telescope he funded, and his will stipulates that fresh flowers be on his grave — always.

The James Lick Telescope is a (now antiquated) refracting telescope built in 1888. It has a lens 36 inches (91 cm) in diameter- a major achievement in its day. The instrument remains in operation and public viewing is allowed on a limited basis. Also called the "Great Lick Refractor" or simply "Lick Refractor", it was the largest refracting telescope in the world until 1897 and now ranks third, after the 40-inch unit at the Yerkes Observatory and the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

 

The telescope is located atop Mount Hamilton at an elevation of 4,209 feet (1,283 m) above sea level. The instrument is housed inside a dome that is powered by hydraulic systems that raise and lower the floor, rotate the dome and drive the clock mechanism to track the Earth's rotation. The original hydraulic arrangement still operates today, with the exception that the original wind-powered pumps that once filled the reservoirs have been replaced with electric pumps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The movable floor in the dome is the first of the kind to be constructed. It is 60 feet (18 m) in diameter, and can be raised or lowered through a distance of 161⁄2 feet (5.0 m), its purpose being to bring the observer within convenient reach of the eye end of the telescope.

 

 

 

 

 

Keith, the docent who gave a tour of the Great Lick Refractor to a small group of visitors, kindly allowed Dave and I to climb an off-limits stairs into the upper gallery so that I could photograph from above.

 

 

While I was photographing from this upper gallery, a technician arrived and began inspecting areas around the edge of the dome. Unplanned and unexpectedly, he opened the dome up to the brilliant daylight sky.

 

 

 

 

Dave sitting in a window while the technician inspects the wheels that the dome rotates on

 

 

 

 

In order to fully inspect the mechanics of the dome, the technician raised up the entire floor nearly 17ft

 

 

Closing the dome

 

 

 

A view looking towards San Francisco seen from the parking lot in front of the Lick Observatory

The Lick Observatory closed at 5pm.

Dave and I were the last ones out of the building. Keith the docent walked out with us. I mentioned that it was my birthday, and that he had made it a very special day by allowing me to photograph from the upper gallery. Keith gave both Dave and I pieces of a meteorite from South Africa.

The temperature outside was 87º

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view through the haze of a distant San Jose

 

 

David