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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 by the University of California Observatories, with headquarters on the University of California, Santa Cruz, campus, where its scientific staff moved in the mid-1960s. == Early history == Lick Observatory is the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory.〔(The Building of Lick 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).〔 〕 Lick, although primarily a carpenter and piano maker, chose the precise site atop Mount Hamilton and was there buried 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 (California State Route 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). The road is closed when there is snow at Lick Observatory.〔Mount Hamilton (California)〕 The first telescope installed at the observatory was a 12-inch refractor made by Alvan Clark. Astronomer E. E. Barnard used the telescope to make "exquisite photographs of comets and nebulae," according to D. J. Warner of Warner & Swasey Company.〔 The 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 Observatory in 1897. Warner & Swasey designed and built the telescope mounting, with the lens manufactured by one of the Clark sons, Alvan Graham. E. E. Barnard used the telescope in 1892 to discover a fifth moon of Jupiter, Amalthea. This was the first addition to Jupiter's known moons since Galileo observed the planet through his parchment tube and spectacle lens. The telescope provided spectra for W. W. Campbell's work on the radial velocities of stars.〔 In May 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. Edward Singleton Holden was the first director. The location provided excellent viewing performance because of 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 low cloud cover that is often seen in the San Jose area. When low cloud cover is present below the peak, light pollution is cut to almost nothing. On May 21, 1939, during a nighttime fog that engulfed the summit, a U.S. Army Air Force Northrop A-17 two-seater attack plane crashed into the main building. Because a scientific meeting was being held elsewhere, the only staff member present was Nicholas Mayall. Nothing caught fire and the two individuals in the building were unharmed. The pilot of the plane, Lt. Richard F. Lorenz, and passenger Private W. E. Scott were killed instantly. The telephone line was broken by the crash, so no help could be called for at first. Eventually help arrived together with numerous reporters and photographers, who kept arriving almost all night long. Evidence of their numbers could be seen the next day by the litter of flash bulbs carpeting the parking lot. The press widely covered the accident and many reports emphasized the luck in not losing a large cabinet of spectrograms which was knocked over by the crash coming through an astronomer's office window. Perhaps more notable was the lack of fire or damage to a telescope dome.〔 〕〔 〕〔 (Airplane Crash at the Lick Observatory ) 〕〔 (The Lick Observatory A-17A ) 〕 In 1950, the California state legislature appropriated funds for a reflector telescope, which was completed in 1959. The observatory additionally has a Cassegrain reflector dedicated to photoelectric measurements of star brightness, and received a pair of astrographs from the Carnegie Corporation.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lick Observatory」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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