Private Group Plans to Reopen Mt. Wilson Observatory

Officials announced plans Tuesday to reopen the Mt. Wilson Observatory, one of the nation’s most historic astronomical facilities, pending adequate funding by a grass-roots organization that sprang up after the Carnegie Institution put the observatory’s 100-inch telescope in mothballs two years ago.

The nonprofit Mt. Wilson Institute said it plans to expand public use of the facility and reopen the famed Hooker telescope, which dominated the world of astronomy for more than three decades. Carnegie trustees have agreed to transfer ownership of the observatory to the institute as soon as funding is assured.

The observatory features a cluster of instruments dating from the beginning of the century, when pioneering astronomer George Ellery Hale began construction with funds from industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Over the years the observatory grew to include several instruments, including three solar telescopes.

The 100-inch optical telescope was hailed as “the mightiest” instrument in astronomy when it was completed in 1919, and it reigned supreme until the completion of Caltech’s 200-inch telescope on Mt. Palomar in San Diego County after World War II.

It could cost as much as $700,000 a year to operate the observatory, but officials with the institute said they do not anticipate problems raising the money.

“At this minute, money is not a problem,” said Arthur H. Vaughan, staff astronomer with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a trustee of the Mt. Wilson Institute. He said the observatory could be fully operational within about 18 months.

“We have enough funding potential to carry out everything,” said attorney Robert Ferguson, the institute’s treasurer. And although the institute now has only $2,000 in the bank, “We plan to have in excess of $1 million in the treasury, probably in the next two or three months,” he added, but he declined to say where the funds are expected to come from. The long-range plan is to create an endowment within five years that would provide adequate income to run and maintain the facility on a permanent basis.

The historical significance of the observatory, coupled with its continuing scientific potential, make it easier to raise funds, Ferguson said.

“After you get past the first question of light pollution, the interest level perks up immediately,” he said.

When they announced in 1984 plans to close the observatory, Carnegie officials said one reason for the decision was the light pollution in the Los Angeles Basin. City lights degrade many astronomical observations because they make dim objects, such as distant galaxies, much more difficult to see.

However, Carnegie officials and several astronomers insisted Tuesday that the primary reason that Carnegie decided to abandon Mt. Wilson grew out of a commitment to expand its Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, which is more suitable for deep-sky studies of distant faint objects, the focus of modern astronomy.

“Carnegie decided with its limited resources to concentrate on building its large telescope in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Carnegie astronomer Ray J. Weymann.

Mt. Wilson, Weymann said, “is ideally suited” for the study of brighter objects in the sky, which are not as adversely affected by light pollution.

“There’s some very interesting science that can be done here,” he added.

Furthermore, because of the atmospheric conditions that create the inversion layer that blankets the Los Angeles Basin much of the time, the air above Mt. Wilson normally is very still--another major bonus for astronomers.

Turbulent air is what causes stars to appear to twinkle, and “a star’s twinkling is very pretty, but very obnoxious,” said Al Hibbs, who retired recently as a staff scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“The turbulence is constantly defocusing the telescope,” Hibbs said. “But it turns out that Mt. Wilson has very stable air.”

Long-Term Projects

The observatory should fill a major void in astronomical research because it will be available for long-term projects spanning several years, astronomers said.

Publicly owned telescopes, such as those on top of Kitt Peak in Arizona, must be made available to a broad base of astronomers, so most scientists who win time with a major scope are limited to a few days of use, at most.

That need not be the case with the Hooker telescope. Since it will be operated with private funds it can be devoted to long-term use by fewer astronomers.

“We can devote the large instrument to extended programs,” said Sallie L. Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, and a trustee with the Mt. Wilson Institute. “So if you would like to see how some stars vary over a long period of time, you can do this.”

Baliunas said an advisory board is being set up to screen applications for use of the telescope, and any scientist will have a chance to use it if the proposal is judged worthwhile.

Continued Use

Baliunas is one of several scientists who have continued to use some of Mt. Wilson’s facilities in the two years since the main telescope was closed. Carnegie has allowed scientists with funding from other agencies to use the solar telescopes and a 60-inch optical telescope, although Carnegie has made it clear it hoped to rid itself eventually of the entire complex.

The observatory grounds have remained open to the public, and officials of the Mt. Wilson Institute said Tuesday they hope to expand public participation in the years ahead and open areas of the complex that have been closed to the public.

The institute’s governing board includes members of a wide range of business and scientific organizations, plus representatives of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation and the Museum of Natural History.

“We have a rare opportunity of actually operating an observatory,” said Peter Keller of the County Museum of Natural History.

He said he hopes the observatory will become a major educational tool as well as an expanded facility for use by the general public.

Scientific Value

“It would be criminal to see it go into disrepair,” Keller said. “It is one of the most important scientific sites in the United States, if not the world.”

The only potential snag in the arrangement lies in the ability of the Mt. Wilson Institute to convince Carnegie that it has adequate funding to operate the observatory for what Weymann described as “a reasonable period of time, at least several years.”

Carnegie’s executive committee endorsed the plan last month and said it is willing to transfer title to the entire observatory to the Mt. Wilson Institute, according to a statement released Tuesday.