Reverent Laurentine Hamilton High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph, Mt. Hamilton, CA
N 37° 20.595 W 121° 38.213
10S E 620740 N 4133822
The largest telescope at Lick Observatory
Waymark Code: WM628R
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 03/20/2009
Views: 3
Our original plan was to register the C. Donald Shane telescope, California's largest telescope, in this category, but the only place we could find the name Shane was at wikipedia. (
visit link) In and around the telescope, everybody just refers to "the big one" and we couldn't find a name plaque anywhere.
Luckily, inside the dome, right next to the telescope, we found a note of dedication to the Reverent Laurentine Hamilton, (
visit link) the first person to climb this then nameless peak in 1861. In 1876, construction of the Lick Observatory, the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory started on Mount Hamilton and new telescopes have been built here ever since. In 1959, the largest telescope at the observatory, the 120 inch C. Donald Shane telescope was completed and in 1986, a large part of that telescope, the High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph was named in honor of the man who paved the way to the top oft this mountain.