California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960

Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

Horizontal snow telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, ca.1930

(USC DC Image)

Horizontal snow telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, ca.1930

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Photograph of the horizontal snow telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, ca.1930. The walls of the telescope are layered. Several pulley contraptions and the lens sit on an open platform at the eye of the telescope. Utility lines zigzags across the tree covered area.; "The Snow Telescope, the oldest telescope on the mountain, is named after its benefactor, Helen Snow. She donated money for its construction at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. George Ellery Hale moved the telescope to Mount Wilson in 1904 to make observations of the Sun. Dr. Hale took the telescope on loan from Yerkes, although it has been here ever since. Unlike the two tower solar telescopes (which were built later), the light path for the Snow Telescope is horizontal. The building is long and originally was covered in canvas. This was a great fire hazard, and the crude building was replaced with an aluminum shell in 1911. Light from the Sun is reflected off the coelostat mirror (on the right partially in shadow) to another 30-inch mirror (at center) and reflected nearly horizontally 100 feet to the back of the building. There, it falls on a 24-inch concave mirror with a 60-foot focal length and is then brought to a focus at the entrance slit of the spectrograph as an image 6 1/2 inches across. The spectrograph is located in a 15-foot pit. Despite its simple construction, the horizontal light path of the Snow Telescope made observations difficult because heat from the sunlit ground affected the observational seeing. Therefore, shortly after being put into operation in 1904, plans were made to build the 60-foot Solar Tower." -- unknown author.

Asset Metadata

Title Horizontal snow telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, ca.1930

Subject Astronomical instruments (lcsh), Mount Wilson Observatory (subject), Observatories (lcsh), Observatories -- Mount Wilson Observatory (file heading), research facilities (adlf), Telescopes (lcsh)

Tags OAI-PMH Harvest

Place California (states), Los Angeles (counties), USA (countries)

Temporal Subject 1930

Type images

Format 2 photographs : glass photonegative, photoprint, b&w ; 21 x 26 cm. (aacr2), glass plate negatives (format), photographic prints (aat), photographs (aat)

Source California Historical Society (contributing entity), California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960 (collection), Title Insurance and Trust, and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection, 1860-1960 (subcollection)

Date Created 1930

Creator C.J. Crandall & Co. (photographer), Pierce, C.C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946 (photographer)

Publisher University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Repository Email specol@lib.usc.edu

Repository Name USC Libraries Special Collections

Repository Location Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189

Rights Public Domain. Please credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.

Copyright Public Domain. Please credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.

Access Conditions Send requests to address or e-mail given

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/chs-m10578

Identifier 5673 (accession number), CHS-5673 (call number), CHS-5673 (filename), chs-m265 (legacy collection record id), chs-c65-15694 (legacy record id), chs-m10578 (legacy record id), USC-0-1-1-10728 (legacy record id), USC-1-1-1-10727 (legacy record id), 1-100-13 (microfiche number), USC (project)

IIIF ID [Document.IIIFV3ID]

DM Record ID 15694

Unique identifier UC143324

Legacy Identifier CHS-5673.tiff

Type Image

Internet Media Type image/tiff

Resolution 18.8 in × 15.0 in at 300dpi
47.8 cm × 38.2 cm at 300dpi

Inherited Values

Title Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

Description The nearly 15,000 unique photographs of this collection contain the work of C.C. Pierce which cover the Los Angeles region city, street and architectural views, California Missions, Southwestern Native Americans, and turn-of-century Nevada, Arizona, and California. Pierce, active from 1886 to 1940, was one of the leading photographers of his day and amassed a collection of 15,000 images, including his own and those bought and copied from his contemporaries, George Wharton James and Charles Puck. The James collection contains over 2,000 images of portraits, customs, ceremonies, arts, and games of various groups of Southwestern Native Americans.

Date Created 1860/1960

Linked assets

Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

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