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Authors: Ronald Florence
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more. It would be up to George to find the money elsewhere to have mirror and other optical surfaces ground, to mount the telescope, and to build an observatory. George accepted the challenge.
The Saint-Gobain glassworks in France successfully poured the disk. It was annealed—heated, then gradually cooled over a period of months to avoid strains in the glass from rapid cooling—and shipped to Yerkes. Although funding to complete the project was nowhere in sight, Hale had a colleague at Yerkes, George W. Ritchey, begin grinding the mirror.
Ritchey had little academic training, but he had built several telescopes as a student at the University of Cincinnati, and in 1888 he set up a laboratory at home in Chicago before coming to work for Hale at the Kenwood Observatory. From Kenwood he moved on with Hale to Yerkes. Among astronomers Ritchey was known for his fierce concentration and what one colleague called “the temperament of an artist and a thousand prima donnas.” Ritchey would sometimes spend hours on a single photograph, setting and resetting the focus until it was exactly right, waiting for the perfect seeing conditions, then concentrating so intensely on guiding the fine motions of the telescope that an explosion nearby would not have distracted him. The resulting photograph would be an artistic masterpiece—except when Ritchey, lost in his concentration, neglected to record the date, time, or sky conditions, so that the plate was useless for scientific purposes.
Though hard on colleagues, Ritchey’s perfectionism was ideal in the optics laboratory. He was delighted to seal himself off for hours, even days, at a time, allowing no one near his project, ruling over his domain as an absolute tyrant while he patiently ground, then polished the disk.
While Ritchey began grinding the sixty-inch disk at Yerkes to the optical shape the future telescope would require, George Hale pounded the pavements again, making his pitch for funds to build thesixty-inch telescope. In 1901 he persuaded John D. Rockefeller to visit Yerkes Observatory. The usual show for VIPs was to mount an eyepiece on the telescope and point it to familiar objects for the entertainment and enlightenment of the visitor, but clouds covered the sky most of the day and evening of Rockefeller’s visit. Instead Hale took Rockefeller to the optical laboratory where Ritchey was working on the sixty-inch mirror. Ritchey showed off the procedures and tests used to figure and test a mirror. In one test Ritchey put his finger on the glass surface for a minute, then demonstrated that the distortion of the surface from the heat of his finger could actually be measured. Rockefeller was fascinated by the sensitivity of the test and asked to see it again. But interest wasn’t commitment, and Rockefeller wasn’t willing to fund Hale’s telescope. Nor, it appeared, was anyone else. Hale ran out of pavement to pound. The days of big telescope bequests seemed to be over.
Then, in 1902, Andrew Carnegie announced his gift of $10 million to establish the Carnegie Institution of Washington, “to encourage investigation, research and discovery in the broadest and most liberal manner, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind.” Hale knew one member of the board of directors of the new institution, the legendary Elihu Root, secretary of war in Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet. Root’s father, Oren Root, was a mathematician and astronomer at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Hale was convinced that Root had persuaded Carnegie to give the money.
He wasn’t entirely wrong. Carnegie’s original plan was to donate the money to a quasi-public body that would be under the authority of the president and Congress. President Theodore Roosevelt liked the idea. Nicholas Butler, the president of Columbia University, argued against it. At ten o’clock one night, when their discussions at the White House hit an impasse, Butler suggested that they call
The Saint-Gobain glassworks in France successfully poured the disk. It was annealed—heated, then gradually cooled over a period of months to avoid strains in the glass from rapid cooling—and shipped to Yerkes. Although funding to complete the project was nowhere in sight, Hale had a colleague at Yerkes, George W. Ritchey, begin grinding the mirror.
Ritchey had little academic training, but he had built several telescopes as a student at the University of Cincinnati, and in 1888 he set up a laboratory at home in Chicago before coming to work for Hale at the Kenwood Observatory. From Kenwood he moved on with Hale to Yerkes. Among astronomers Ritchey was known for his fierce concentration and what one colleague called “the temperament of an artist and a thousand prima donnas.” Ritchey would sometimes spend hours on a single photograph, setting and resetting the focus until it was exactly right, waiting for the perfect seeing conditions, then concentrating so intensely on guiding the fine motions of the telescope that an explosion nearby would not have distracted him. The resulting photograph would be an artistic masterpiece—except when Ritchey, lost in his concentration, neglected to record the date, time, or sky conditions, so that the plate was useless for scientific purposes.
Though hard on colleagues, Ritchey’s perfectionism was ideal in the optics laboratory. He was delighted to seal himself off for hours, even days, at a time, allowing no one near his project, ruling over his domain as an absolute tyrant while he patiently ground, then polished the disk.
While Ritchey began grinding the sixty-inch disk at Yerkes to the optical shape the future telescope would require, George Hale pounded the pavements again, making his pitch for funds to build thesixty-inch telescope. In 1901 he persuaded John D. Rockefeller to visit Yerkes Observatory. The usual show for VIPs was to mount an eyepiece on the telescope and point it to familiar objects for the entertainment and enlightenment of the visitor, but clouds covered the sky most of the day and evening of Rockefeller’s visit. Instead Hale took Rockefeller to the optical laboratory where Ritchey was working on the sixty-inch mirror. Ritchey showed off the procedures and tests used to figure and test a mirror. In one test Ritchey put his finger on the glass surface for a minute, then demonstrated that the distortion of the surface from the heat of his finger could actually be measured. Rockefeller was fascinated by the sensitivity of the test and asked to see it again. But interest wasn’t commitment, and Rockefeller wasn’t willing to fund Hale’s telescope. Nor, it appeared, was anyone else. Hale ran out of pavement to pound. The days of big telescope bequests seemed to be over.
Then, in 1902, Andrew Carnegie announced his gift of $10 million to establish the Carnegie Institution of Washington, “to encourage investigation, research and discovery in the broadest and most liberal manner, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind.” Hale knew one member of the board of directors of the new institution, the legendary Elihu Root, secretary of war in Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet. Root’s father, Oren Root, was a mathematician and astronomer at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Hale was convinced that Root had persuaded Carnegie to give the money.
He wasn’t entirely wrong. Carnegie’s original plan was to donate the money to a quasi-public body that would be under the authority of the president and Congress. President Theodore Roosevelt liked the idea. Nicholas Butler, the president of Columbia University, argued against it. At ten o’clock one night, when their discussions at the White House hit an impasse, Butler suggested that they call
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