Located on the 4,200-foot summit of Mount Hamilton (1,280 m), to the east of San Jose, the Lick Observatory has been part of the University of California since its first telescope was completed in 1888. On our way from San Jose to visit Cousin Court and Ellen in Jackson, CA, Randall, Martha, and I took the long, steep, twisty road across the Diablo Range, at the top of which we stopped to visit the Lick Observatory.

It was the world's first permanently occupied mountaintop observatory, demonstrating the feasibility of working in high, remote sites where conditions for astronomical observations were better than at lower elevations. The legacy of self-made California millionaire James Lick, construction on the observatory began in 1867, the year of his death. After building a 19-mile road (30 km) road from the Santa Clara valley through ranch land and native chaparral to the summit, a 12-inch (0.3 m) refractor telescope was installed. Soon afterwards, the largest telescope of its kind (at that time) was installed. This was the Great 36-inch (0.9 m) Refractor, under which James Lick was buried. We enjoyed a tour of this telescope which is about 60 feet (18 m) long and under which is a wooden floor of 60 feet diameter (18 m), which can be raised or lowered by about 16 feet or (5 m) to position the observer at the eyepiece, depending upon the vertical angle of the telescope.

There were several delays in the telescope's commissioning. First, one of the two huge lenses was broken while being shipped from France. It took 18 more attempts to get a replacement satisfactorily made and transported. Once installed, clouds caused a delay of three more days before finding that the telescope could not focus correctly because the tube was the wrong length. A hacksaw was produced and once the tube was cut down to the correct focal length, the stars came into focus.



The Great 36-inch (0.9 m) Refractor telescope inside its closed dome

The Great Lick Refractor was subsequently joined by six other telescopes, including the 120-inch (3 m) Shane Reflector, which is the site's largest telescope. Research projects at the Lick Observatory include the study of extra-solar planets, searches for super-novae which informs the study of Dark Energy, and large-scale mapping of the distribution of galaxies in the nearby universe. It would be a long trek for a public night-time viewing but if the many photographs on the Observatory's walls give an idea of what might be seen on a clear night, it might well we worth the effort.