Category of Astronomical Heritage: tangible immovable
Lick Observatory, Mount Hamilton, California, USA

Description

Geographical position

Lick Observatory, 7281 Mount Hamilton Rd.,
Mount Hamilton, California CA 95140, USA
University of California Observatories (UCO)

Location

Latitude 37°20'28'' N, Longitude 121°38'35'' W, Elevation 1,283 m (4,209 ft) above mean sea level.

IAU observatory code

662

Description of (scientific/cultural/natural) heritage

Fig. 1a. Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton (*1888), 1900 (CC)

Fig. 1b. Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton from Grant Ranch Park, today, (CC2.5, Seano1 commonswiki)

Fig. 1c. James Lick (1796--1876) (CC)

Fig. 1d. Bust of James Lick (1796--1876), (CC)

James Lick (1796--1876), real-estate entrepreneur and California's wealthiest citizen, bequeathed 700,000 dollars -- the largest gift in the history of science. In 1887, Lick's body was buried at the base of the telescope. A brass plaque erected at the site reads: "Here lies the body of James Lick."

Fig. 2a. Lick Observatory, main building and South dome (CC, Oleg Alexandrov)

Fig. 2b. Lick Observatory layout (CC)

The Lick Observatory was designed and constructed by John Wright (1830--1915), San Francisco's Wright & Sanders firm of architects, between 1876 and 1887 in Classical Revival style.
Before the construction of the observatory began, a road was built. All building materials had to be transported to the site by horses and mules drawn to carts, which could not negotiate the steep inclines, the maximum slope of the road was 6.5°; according to tradition, this road has exactly 365 turns.

The Lick Astronomical Observatory is located on the slope of Mount Hamilton at an altitude of 1283m, 46 km from the city of San José, California. Lick was the first observatory built far away from cities -- on a mountaintop. The observatory is owned by the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).

Fig. 3. Lick Observatory, 1m-Nickel (CC3, Niteowlneils)

The 36-inch Great Lick Refractor was the largest refracting telescope in the world, later (1897) the second after Yerkes.

Highlights in research and discoveries

In 1892, Edward Emerson Barnard (1857--1923) discovered Jupiter's fifth moon, Amalthea, using this telescope.

History

Fig. 4. Lick Observatory, Shane Automated Planet Finder (CC2, Michael from San Jose)

$Lick Observatory, 36-inch (91cm) Large Refractor ($

Fig. 5a. Lick Observatory, 36-inch (91cm) Large Refractor (1889), (CC)

$Lick Observatory, Large Refractor (CC2, myyorgda)$

Fig. 5b. Lick Observatory, Large Refractor (CC2, myyorgda)

Instruments of Lick Observatory

Meridian Circle (16.2-cm, 2-m), made by Adolf Repsold & Söhne (1888)
6-inch-Willard portrait lens (1890s), transformed by John Brashear for E.E. Barnard into a wide-field camera for photographing structures of the Milky Way;
the San Francisco banker Charles Crocker sponsored a mounting, named after him
as Crocker Photographic Telescope, Lick Historical collections cat. no. SO000209
36-inch (91cm) Great Lick Refractor (1880--1886, first light in 1888), optics: glass disk, Paris, grinding and polishing by Alvan Clark and his son Alvan G. Clark, Cambridgeport, Massachussetts, mounting by Warner & Swasey
(South Dome, Main Building, Observatory Peak)
36-inch (90cm) Crossley Reflector, built by the amateur astronomer Andrew A. Common in Great Britain (1879). Then the reflector was sold to Edward Crossley in 1885, who had an observatory in Halifax, UK. After 10 years, Crossley donated the reflector including the dome to Lick, erected in 1896
(Crossley Dome, Ptolemy Peak)
20-inch Carnegie Double Astrograph, used for the Lick Northern Proper Motion Survey
(Double Astrograph Dome, Tycho Brahe Peak)
22-inch Tauchmann Reflector, constructed by the amateur astronomer George Tauchmann in 1937 -- at the time the largest amateur reflecting telescope in the world. Lick Observatory purchased the reflector in 1950, the installation was ready in 1954
(Tauchmann Dome atop the water tank, Huygens Peak)
120-inch (3-m) Reflector -- C. Donald Shane telescope
(Shane Dome, Tycho Brahe Peak)
with the following instrumentation:
- Hamilton spectrometer
- Kast double spectrograph
- ShaneAO adaptive optics system with laser guide star
94-inch (2.4-m) Reflector -- Automated Planet Finder (2013)
39-inch (1-m) Reflector -- Anna L. Nickel
(North (small) Dome, Main Building)
30-inch (76-centimeter) Reflector -- Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT)
(24-inch Dome, Kepler Peak)
24-inch (60-cm) Coudé Auxiliary Telescope
(Inside of Shane Dome, South wall, Tycho Brahe Peak)
5.3-inch (135-mm) Nikon camera lens -- CCD Comet Camera, decommissioned
("The Outhouse" Southwest of the Shane Dome, Tycho Brahe Peak)

Fig. 6a. Edward Singleton Holden (1846--1914), (CC)

Fig. 6b. James E. Keeler
(1857--1900), (CC)

Fig. 6c. William Wallace Campbell (1862--1938), (CC)

Fig. 6d. Robert Grant Aitken (1864--1951), (CC)

Fig. 6e. William Hammond Wright (1871--1959), (CC)

Fig. 6f. Charles Donald Shane (1895--1983) (UCSC)

Directors

1888 to 1897 -- Edward Singleton Holden (1846--1914),

co-founder of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and its first president (1889 to 1891)
1898 to 1900 -- James E. Keeler (1857--1900),
pioneer in photography of galaxies using the 36-inch Crossley Reflector showing the usefulness of reflecting telescopes, in addition, he studied spectroscopically with a grating spectroscope the rings of Saturn (Doppler shifts, 1895), and discovered that the rings do not rotate as a solid body
1901 to 1930 -- William Wallace Campbell (1862--1938), pioneer in spectroscopy, discovery of the Wolf-Rayet star HD 184738 (Campbell's hydrogen envelope star, 1893), catalogue of radial velocities of stars, solar eclipse photography, attempt to test Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1914, 1918
1930 to 1935 -- Robert Grant Aitken (1864--1951),
measured the positions of of double stars, and calculated their orbits,
producing a catalogue (1899) in collaboration with William Joseph Hussey (1862--1926)
1935 to 1942 -- William Hammond Wright (1871--1959),
studied the radial velocity of stars in our galaxy
1945 to 1958 -- Charles Donald Shane (1895--1983),
counted and studied the distribution of galaxies,
the 3-m C. Donald Shane telescope (1978) was named after him
1960 to 1971 -- Nicholas U. Mayall (1906--1993),
astronomer at Lick from 1934 to 1960, Big Bang concept of the beginning of the universe, and also studied Pluto and galaxy movement, planning and construction of the 120-inch (3.0m) reflector
1970 to 1971 -- George Howard Herbig (1920--2013),
T-Tauri-Stars, Herbig-Ae/Be-Stars (emission nebulae associated with newborn stars), which he discovered in 1960 independently by Guillermo Haro Barraza (1913--1988), Observatorio Astrofísico de Tonantzintla, Mexico
1973 to 1981 -- Donald E. Osterbrock (1924-2007),
"Gaseous Nebulae" and "Active Galactic Nuclei", History of Astronomy
....

Fig. 7a. Jupiter Amalthea Simulation, (CC, Rubble pile)

Fig. 7b. 6-inch-Willard portrait lens (1890s), transformed by John Brashear for E.E. Barnard into a wide-field camera for photographing structures of the Milky Way; Crocker Photographic Telescope (CC)

Fig. 7c. Edward Emerson Barnard (1857--1923), (CC)

Fig. 7d. Barnard Dark Cloud 68 in Ophiuchus, photographed with the VLT (1999), (ESO, eso0102a)

Notable employees

cf. UCSC, Lick Observatory Archive

Edward Emerson Barnard (1857--1923),
observational astronomer, discovery of the fifth moon of Jupiter (Amalthea) -
the first discovery of a moon of Jupiter since Galileo Galilei in 1609,
pioneer in astrophotography, he discovered the high proper motion of Barnard's Star in 1916, the Barnard Catalogue (Barnard 1 to Barnard 370) lists a series of dark nebulae, known as Barnard objects
Richard Hawley Tucker (1859--1952),
Repsold meridian circle of the Lick Observatory: positional astronomy,
led observation expeditions in Argentina (Cordoba, San Louis)
Russell Tracy Crawford (1876--1958),
Repsold meridian circle: positional astronomy, theoretical astronomy,
observations and computations of comet orbits
Hamilton Moore Jeffers (1893--1976),
Repsold meridian circle: positional astronomy,
Index Catalogue of Visual Double Stars
Edwin Foster Coddington (1870--1950),
discoveries of comets and asteroids, the galaxy IC 2574 in UMa
is named after him as "Coddington's Nebula"
James F. Chappell (1891--1964),
astrophotography, especially of the Moon
Seth Barnes Nicholson (1891--1963),
discovery of Sinope (1914), a new Jupiter moon,
for his Ph.D. thesis (1915), he computed the orbit
John Martin Schaeberle (1853--1924),
astronomer at Lick from 1888 to 1898, he made solar eclipse expeditions to Cayenne (1889), Chile (1893), Japan (1896), he designed the "Schaeberle camera" in order to take photos of the Sun and its corona during total solar eclipses. Discovery of Procyon B (1896), a faint companion star of Procyon
Elizabeth Ballard Campbell (1891--1961),
wife of William Wallace Campbell, and accompanied him to solar eclipse expeditions, photographs: India (1898), Georgia (1900), Spain (1905), Flint Island, Kiribati, Micronesia (1908), Brovary, Ukraine [Russia] (1914), Goldendale, Washington (1918), and Australia (1922)
Stanislaus Vasilevskis (1907--1988) of Riga, Latvia,
proper-motion study, measuring the movements of more than 300,000 stars
in the Milky Way galaxy
Gerald E. Kron (1913--2012),
photometry of variable stars, star clusters, interstellar reddening
Sandra M. Faber (*1944),
first woman on staff at Lick (1972), now Professor Emerita, Discovery of the empirical relationship between the luminosity and the stellar velocity dispersion σ in the spectra of elliptical galaxies (Faber-Jackson relation: L ~ σ^γ, the index γ is approximately equal to 4, co-author Robert Earl Jackson, 1976)

State of preservation

monument protection -- National Heritage ....?

Fig. 8a. Dome of the 36-inch (91cm) Crossley Reflector, Lick Observatory (CC)

$Large 36-inch-Refractor, Lick Observatory (CC2, Mi$

Fig. 8b. Large 36-inch-Refractor, Lick Observatory (CC2, Michael from San Jose)

Comparison with related/similar sites

Regarding the architecture of the Lick Observatory, it is still an observatory typical for the 19th century with two domes connected to the main building, e.g. the three dome facade of Pulkovo Observatory, St. Petersburg, Russia (1839) or the Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam, Germany (1874).

It is very remarkable, that Lick Observatory is the first real mountain observatory in the world.

The idea to have observatories in elevated places on hills or mountains came up already at the end of the 19th century, but most observatories in Europe were built close to cities, because public transportation was not yet well developed:

Nice Observatory, France is on a small mountain or hill directly at the border of Nice.
There are observatories on hills at the boder of cities like Landessternwarte Heidelberg Observatory, Hamburg Observatory, or Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory, Telegraphenberg,
Abastumani Astrophysical Observatory, Georgia was the first mountain observatory in the Soviet Union.

Fig. 9a. Mountain observatories: Nice Observatory compared to Lick Observatory

Fig. 9a. Lick Observatory aerial (CC, Dicklyon)

Threats or potential threats

no threats

Present use

....
Activities for the public?

Astronomical relevance today

Some highlights of modern research ....?

References

Bibliography (books and published articles)

Kröner, Adolf: Das Lick-Observatorium auf dem Hamilton-Berge in Kalifornien. In: Die Gartenlaube (1886), Heft 14, S. 254.
Orchiston, Wayne & John Pearson: The Lick Observatory Solar Eclipse Expedition to Jeur (India) in 1898. In: Mapping the Oriental Sky. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Oriental Astronomy (ICOA-7), held on September 6-10, 2010 in the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Edited by Edited by Tsuko Nakamura, Wayne Orchiston, Mitsuru Sôma & Richard Strom. Tokyo: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 2011, p. 197-206.
The Lick Observatory Solar Eclipse Expedition to Padang (Indonesia) in 1901. In: Mapping the Oriental Sky. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Oriental Astronomy (ICOA-7), held on September 6-10, 2010 in the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Edited by Tsuko Nakamura, Wayne Orchiston, Mitsuru Sôma & Richard Strom. Tokyo: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 2011, p. 207-216.
Osterbrock, Donald E.; Gustafson, John R. & W.J. Shiloh Unruh: Eye on the Sky: Lick Observatory's First Century. Berkeley, California: University of California Press 1988.
Osterbrock, Donald E.: The Rise and Fall of Edward S. Holden - Part One. In: Journal for the History of Astronomy 15 (1984), 2, No. 43, p. 81, 95-98.
Osterbrock, Donald E.: The Rise and Fall of Edward S. Holden - Part Two. In: Journal for the History of Astronomy 15 (1984), No. 3, p. 151.
Wolfschmidt, Gudrun: Milchstraße Nebel Galaxien -- Strukturen im Kosmos von Herschel bis Hubble. München: Deutsches Museum (Abhandlungen und Berichte, Neue Folge, Band 11). München: Oldenbourg-Verlag 1995.
Wolfschmidt, Gudrun: Repsold Company as a Global Player -- Meridian Circles from the first in 1802 to the modern computerised in 1967. La société Repsold comme acteur mondial -- du premier cercle méridien en 1802 au système informatisé moderne en 1967. In: Une culture de la précision: les cercles méridiens aux XIXe et XXe siècles, une diversité d'ensembles instrumentaux pour des travaux partagés et convergents. Sous la direction de Daniel Belteki, Julien Gressot, Loïc Jeanson & Jean Davoigneau. Journal Cahiers François Viète - Épistémologie, Histoire, Sciences & Techniques (Nantes Université), Série III (2023), No. 14, p. 101--140. (DOI 10.4000/cahierscfv.3989).