Editing Mount Wilson Observatory (section)

===Snow Solar Telescope===

The Snow Solar Telescope was the first telescope installed at the fledgling Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. It was the world's first permanently mounted solar telescope. Solar telescopes had previously been portable so they could be taken to solar eclipses around the world. The telescope was donated to Yerkes Observatory by Helen Snow of Chicago. George Ellery Hale, then director of Yerkes, had the telescope brought to Mount Wilson to put it into service as a proper scientific instrument. Its {{convert|24|in|cm|adj=on}} primary mirror with a {{convert|60|ft|m|adj=on}} focal length, coupled with a spectrograph, did groundbreaking work on the spectra of sunspots, doppler shift of the rotating solar disc and daily solar images in several wavelengths. Stellar research soon followed as the brightest stars could have their spectra recorded with very long exposures on glass plates.<ref name="mtwilson.edu">{{Cite web |url=http://www.mtwilson.edu/Simmons2.html |title=Mount Wilson Observatory |access-date=2015-08-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150712005138/http://www.mtwilson.edu/Simmons2.html |archive-date=2015-07-12 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Snow solar telescope is mostly used by undergraduate students who get hands-on training in solar physics and spectroscopy.<ref>{{cite web |last=Turner |first=Paula C. |title=The CUREA Program at Mount Wilson |url=http://physics.kenyon.edu/people/turner/cureaweb/turner_aas07poster.pdf |publisher=[[Kenyon College]] |access-date=21 September 2020}}</ref>
It was also used publicly for the May 9, 2016 transit of Mercury across the face of the Sun.

[[File:The top of the 150-Foot Solar Tower Observatory on Mt. Wilson.jpg|thumb|left|Top of the Solar tower containing the mirrors]]