Gayle Riggsbee from the Charlotte Amateur Astronomers Society was tonight’s speaker. His topic was “Building the 200 inch Hale Telescope.” Gayle began his talk with the topic of constructing large telescopes; especially those equatorially mounted using a split ring design. Today, large telescopes are computer controlled and mounted on altitude-azimuth type mounts. The Hale 200 inch is the most massive equatorially mounted telescope ever constructed. He showed some other examples of equatorially mounted split ring scopes.
Gayle’s talk initially focused on the important people responsible for the 200 inch telescope. George Ellery Hale was the person who secured funding for the California Institute of Technology in the amount of $6 million dollars from the Rockefeller Foundation. This money was used to construct the telescope and observatory. He talked about Edwin Hubble who proved that the galaxies were island universes, Harlow Shapley who worked for Hale at Mt. Wilson, Vesto Slipher who used spectrographs to show galaxies were receding, Mark Serrurier who designed the truss tube of the telescope, and Russell W. Porter who worked on the design of the 200 inch and produced many wonderful diagrams of it.
Gayle told and showed how the 200 inch mirror was originally contracted to GE and after they failed to produce a mirror, Corning glass successfully completed the task. He showed many rare photos from the Philadelphia plant where most of the telescope was constructed before shipping to California. A lot of the scope went by sea but the mirror went by rail. Gayle also had many photos showing the construction of the observatory on Mt. Palomar.
In the business part of the meeting Ian Hewitt reminded everyone that dues are due. After April 15, the roster will be updated showing only paid up members. He also thanked Brian Reasor for organizing the successful Messier Marathon held last weekend at Howell Woods. Ian announced that elections will be held at the May meeting and that nominations for all offices are still open. The next meeting which is a RACOBS meeting is scheduled for April 22. In the event of bad weather, the meeting will be cancelled because that day is a state holiday and the Museum will be closed. Ian also reminded us about Astronomy Days in May and the need for lead people for some exhibits and the need for many volunteers. The meeting adjourned by 9:30 and many members headed to TK Tripps for food.
