The 200” Hale telescope is the forth in a series of large telescopes that George Hale envisioned and was the driving force that made those projects successful. He built the largest telescope in the world four times in a row! At the start of this project in 1938 there were several major inventions required to even make a telescope of this size possible. There are several books that chronicle the fascinating story of the construction of this telescope that are worth reading. This is a selection of photos from two visits to Palomar in the early 90’s. On the second visit I was privileged to spend three nights with astronomers as they worked on two projects related to proper motion of stars and a quasar hunt.
46, The f/30 Coudé optical path comes to focus close to the slanted surface on the right side of this photo. Light coming from the telescope passes through the south polar bearing (to the left of this room) and into this room through a hole in the upper left. A large high precession spectrograph is in a long tunnel to the right of this photo. The “phantom” telescope is in the cabinet at the lower left, and the polar drive gears are also to the left of this room.
46, The f/30 Coudé optical path comes to focus close to the slanted surface on the right side of this photo. Light coming from the telescope passes through the south polar bearing (to the left of this room) and into this room through a hole in the upper left. A large high precession spectrograph is in a long tunnel to the right of this photo. The “phantom” telescope is in the cabinet at the lower left, and the polar drive gears are also to the left of this room.