Editing Lick Observatory (section)

== Early history ==
Lick Observatory is the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://collections.ucolick.org/archives_on_line/bldg_the_obs.html|title=The Lick Observatory Collections Project: Building the Observatory|website=collections.ucolick.org|access-date=March 19, 2018}}</ref>
The observatory, in a [[Classical Revival architecture|Classical Revival style]] structure, was constructed between 1876 and 1887, from a bequest from [[James Lick]] of $700,000, {{Inflation|US|700000|1887|fmt=eq}}.<ref name=USObs>
{{cite book
 | last = Kirby-Smith
 | first = H. T.
 | title = U.S. Observatories
 | date = 1976
 | publisher = Litton Educational Publishing, Inc.
 | location = New York, US
 | isbn = 978-0-442-24451-4
 | url-access = registration
 | url = https://archive.org/details/usobservatoriesd0000kirb
 }}
</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/00694234/|title=Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton, Cal.|website=loc.gov|access-date=March 19, 2018}}</ref>
Lick, originally a carpenter and piano maker, had arrived from Peru in [[San Francisco]], California, in late 1847; after accruing significant wealth he began making various donations in 1873.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Foote |first=H.S. |title=Santa Clara County, California |publisher=The Lewis Publishing Company |year=1888 |location=Chicago, Illinois |pages=126–133}}</ref> In his last deed he chose the site atop Mount Hamilton,<ref name=":1" /> and was buried there in 1887 under the future site of the telescope,<ref name=USObs/> with a brass tablet bearing the inscription, "Here lies the body of James Lick".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/2010/lcalhoun.4.html |title="To The Unmounted Lens" from Hand-book of the Lick Observatory |last=Calhoun |first=Liz |website=University Lowbrow Astronomers |publisher=[[University of Michigan]] |access-date=2018-12-31 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

[[Image:LickObservatoryDiagram.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Layout of the Lick Observatory. The dome housing the {{convert|36|in|cm|adj=on|abbr=off|order=flip|sp=us}} Great Lick refractor telescope is on the right.]]
[[File:Lick Observatory.JPG|right|thumb|Lick Observatory in 1900]]

Lick additionally negotiated that [[Santa Clara County]] construct a "first-class road" to the summit, completed in 1876.<ref name=USObs/> Lick chose [[John Wright (architect)|John Wright]], of San Francisco's [[Wright & Sanders]] firm of architects, to design both the Observatory and the Astronomer's House.<ref>California Architect and Business News, 9/1881; Lick Observatory Archives.</ref> 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. The road from Smith Creek to the summit makes 367 complete turns, in a distance of seven miles.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008904689 |title=On the road to Mt. Hamilton, a guide book for the tourist ... |orig-date=189-?] |location=San Jose?}}</ref> The road is closed when there is snow.<ref>[[Mount Hamilton (California)]]</ref>

The first telescope installed at the observatory was a {{convert|12|in|adj=on|abbr=off|sp=us}} [[refracting telescope|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]].<ref name=USObs/>

[[Image:Lick Telescope 1889.jpg|right|thumb|upright|The Great Lick {{convert|36|in|cm|adj=on|abbr=off|order=flip|sp=us}} refractor, in an 1889 engraving]]

In 1880, a {{convert|36|in|cm|adj=on|abbr=off|sp=us}} lens was commissioned to [[Alvan Clark & Sons]], for $51,000 ({{Inflation|index=US|value=51000|start_year=1880|r=-4|cursign=$|fmt=eq}}). Manufacturing of the lens took until 1885 and it was delivered to the observatory on December 29, 1886.<ref name=":1" /> [[Warner & Swasey]] designed and built the telescope mounting. The telescope, built with this lens, became the world's largest [[refracting telescope]] from when it saw [[First light (astronomy)|first light]] on January 3, 1888, until the construction of [[Yerkes Observatory]] in 1897.<ref name="USObs" />

=== Under the University of California ===
In May 1888, the observatory was turned over to the [[Regents of the University of California]],<ref name="NYTimes1888">
{{cite news |date=May 29, 1888 |title=The Lick Observatory Completed (from San Francisco Alto May 22, 1888) |page=5 |journal=The New York Times |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D03E3DD143AE033A2575AC2A9639C94699FD7CF |issn=0362-4331 |quote=Sometime this week the Trustees of the James Lick Estate will convey to the Board of Regents of the State University the Mount Hamilton Observatory.}}
</ref>
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.  Often a [[San Francisco fog|layer of low coastal clouds]] invades the valley below, especially on nights from late-spring to mid-summer, a phenomenon known in California as the [[June Gloom]].  On nights when the observatory remains above that layer, light pollution can be greatly reduced.{{Cn|date=December 2022}}

[[Edward Emerson Barnard|E. E. Barnard]] used the telescope in 1892 to discover a fifth [[Moons of Jupiter|moon of Jupiter]], [[Amalthea (moon)|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 [[Spectrum|spectra]] for [[William Wallace Campbell|W. W. Campbell's]] work on the [[radial velocities]] of [[star]]s.<ref name="USObs" />

In 1905 (Jan. 5 and Feb. 27), [[Charles Dillon Perrine]] discovered the sixth and seventh moons of Jupiter (Elara and Himalia) on photographs taken with the 36-inch Crossley reflecting telescope which he had recently rebuilt.<ref name="Perrine 1905">{{cite journal| last=Perrine| first=C. D.|title=The Seventh Satellite of Jupiter|journal=Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific| date=March 30, 1905| volume=17| issue=101|pages= 62–63|url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/PASP./0017//0000062.000.html | jstor=40691209|bibcode=1905PASP...17...56. | doi = 10.1086/121624| doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Discovery of a Sixth Satellite of J">{{cite journal|title=Discovery of a Sixth Satellite of Jupiter |journal=Astronomical Journal |volume=24 |issue=18 |date=1905 |pages=154B |bibcode = 1905AJ.....24..154P |doi = 10.1086/103612 |last1=Porter |first1=J.G.|doi-access=free }}</ref>

On August 7, 1921, an unusually bright [[Lick Object of 1921|mysterious astronomical object]] was seen from the observatory only about three degrees from the Sun,{{r|Campbell_1921}} where recent analysis in 2016 concluded that this is highly likely a comet.{{r|Sekanina_2016}}

In 1928, Donald C. Shane studied [[carbon star]]s, and was able to distinguish them into spectral classes ''R''0–''R''9 and ''N''0–''N''7 ''(''on this scale ''N''7 is the reddest and ''R''0 the bluest).<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/observing-carbon-stars/|title=Observing Carbon Stars|date=2018-05-22|website=Sky & Telescope|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> This was an expansion of [[Annie Jump Cannon]] of Harvard's work on carbon stars that had divided them into R and N types.<ref name=":0" /> The N stars have more [[cyanogen]] and the R stars have more carbon.<ref name=":0" />

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<!--was one not a staffer?--> 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<!--did the airplane come through the window, or the cabinet--> through an astronomer's office window. There was no damage to the telescope dome.<ref name="Stone1970"><!--this telescope is mentioned here, but its construction, installation, etc., are not mentioned at all-->
{{cite book
 | title = There was light: Autobiography of a university: Berkeley, 1868–1968
 | editor1-last = Stone
 | editor1-first = Irving
 | last1 = Mayall
 | first1 = Nicholas Ulrich
 | author-link1 = Nicholas Mayall
 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=nuA7AAAAIAAJ
 | date = 1970
 | chapter = Nicholas U. Mayall
 | publisher = Doubleday & Company, Inc.
 | location = Garden City, New York
 | pages = 117–8
}}
</ref><ref name="NYTimes1939">
{{cite news
 | journal = The New York Times
 | edition = Late City
 | url = http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70810FB3C54107A93C0AB178ED85F4D8385F9
 | date = May 22, 1939
 | title = 2 Die as Army Plane Hits Lick Observatory, Damaging Offices and Destroying Records
 | page = 1
 | agency = Associated Press
 | issn = 0362-4331
 | quote = Lost in thick fog, an army attack plane crashed into Lick Astronomical Observatory of the University of California on Mount Hamilton tonight.  Its two occupants were killed.  They were Lieut. R. F. Lorenz, 25, of March Field, the pilot, and Private W. E. Scott, a passenger.
}}
</ref><ref>
[http://www.donrjordan.com/lickcrash.html Airplane Crash at the Lick Observatory] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080827170111/http://www.donrjordan.com/lickcrash.html |date=August 27, 2008 }}
</ref><ref>
[http://www.donrjordan.com/licka17crash.html The Lick Observatory A-17A] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090422182251/http://www.donrjordan.com/licka17crash.html |date=April 22, 2009 }}
</ref>

In 1950, the [[California state legislature]] appropriated funds for a {{convert|120|in|cm|adj=on|abbr=off|sp=us}} [[reflector telescope]], which was completed in 1959. The observatory additionally has a {{convert|24|in|cm|adj=on|abbr=off|sp=us}} [[Cassegrain reflector]] dedicated to [[photoelectric]] measurements of star brightness, and received a pair of {{convert|20|in|cm|adj=on|abbr=off|sp=us}} [[astrograph]]s from the [[Carnegie Corporation]].<ref name=USObs/>