Science / Medicine : A 100 Years of Reaching for the Stars
In his day, they called James Lick a miser.
Even after amassing a fortune in California real estate during the Gold Rush, the former piano maker from Stumpstown, Pa., continued his penny-pinching ways, wearing the same stovepipe silk hat for years, never bothering to employ a housekeeper at his 24-room San Jose mansion and sleeping on an old mattress laid on top of a favorite piano.
Yet while the curmudgeonly old bachelor seemed to have no particular gifts other than working wood and making money--at one time he was probably one of the richest men in the Bay Area--Lick played a singular role in the history of American science.
It was his vision and generous bequest--the bulk of his $3-million estate--that created the first permanent mountaintop astronomical observatory in the world--and the prototype establishment for the coming era of “big science.”
Originally, he had talked of memorializing himself with a pyramid, “larger than Cheops,” to be erected in the very heart of San Francisco, at 4th and Market streets. Happily for astronomy, George Davidson, a geodesist and astronomer who was president of the California Academy of Sciences, was able to talk the ordinarily practical-minded Pennsylvania Dutchman out of this extravagant gesture.
Atop 4,200-foot Mt. Hamilton above San Jose in the Diablo Range, Lick Observatory was the premier observatory of its day, the first to be selected for its still pristine “seeing” conditions rather than for its proximity to some academic institution and the first to practice a large, team approach to science.
For several years before the turn of the century, it possessed the world’s most powerful telescope, a 36-inch refractor whose lenses were ground by the famed Cambridge, Mass., optical house of Alvan Clark & Sons. (Refractors rely on clear glass lenses to focus light, whereas reflectors, today’s most common type of large telescope, depend on curved mirrors.) Even after it was eclipsed in size, the Clark refractor continued to outperform larger telescopes because of Mt. Hamilton’s splendid observing conditions that let astronomers work as many as 300 days a year.
The observatory that Lick funded but never saw completed is celebrating its 100th anniversary. On June 1, 1888, his executors turned over the deed of trust to the regents of the fledgling University of California. That occasion was marked June 1 at a gala black-tie dinner attended by civic leaders and scientists, as well as some of Lick’s descendants, at San Jose’s Fairmont Hotel.
There is a universe to celebrate. Lick’s illustrious past includes some of the great milestones of modern astronomy:
E .E. Barnard’s discovery of a fifth moon of Jupiter, Amalthea, nearly three centuries after Galileo sighted the first four Jovian satellites.
Introduction of the first really successful large reflector, anticipating what would be the telescope of choice for 20th-Century astronomy.
James E. Keeler’s spectroscopic studies of double stars, which showed that such pairs--one orbiting the other--were not an oddity but a common feature of the cosmos.
Robert J. Trumpler’s conclusive confirmation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity by methodically analyzing the bending of starlight as it passes the sun during an eclipse. (Earlier eclipse studies by British astronomers were rejected as too imprecise by many American scientists.)
Heber D. Curtis’ pioneering photographs of spiral nebulae, or “island universes” that he believed were composed of hundreds of millions of stars like our own Milky Way galaxy, an idea dramatically confirmed a few years later by Edwin Hubble at Mt. Wilson Observatory.
C. Donald Shane’s discovery that not only do galaxies cluster in groups but that the groups themselves form superclusters.
To be sure, the observatory has had its ups and downs over the years.
During the first decade, Lick’s first director, Edward S. Holden, a West Pointer, ruled the mountaintop with an iron hand, incurring the wrath of the astronomers--Barnard, for one, left in a huff. But, as former Lick Director Donald E. Osterbrock and two colleagues, John R. Gustafson and W. J. Shiloh Unruh, tell it in their charming centennial history, “Eye on the Sky” (University of California Press), Holden was extremely effective at cajoling contributions from San Francisco’s business leaders at a time when the observatory was only meagerly supported by the state Legislature.
The astronomers could be fiercely independent. For years they resisted efforts to absorb them into the Berkeley astronomy department, fearing they would become bogged down in teaching undergraduates. The power struggle finally ended in 1966 when they shuttled off the mountain with their families and more than 67 tons of books, photographic plates and assorted paraphernalia to form the astronomy department at the new UC Santa Cruz 50 miles away. Now only maintenance and technical personnel and their families live at Lick year-round.
Some of the troubles have been physical. In 1939, an Army Air Force A-17 attack bomber, groping through fog, crashed into the main building. There were no casualties on the ground, but the two fliers were killed instantly and the scar can still be seen in the repaired brickwork. In 1984, a powerful earthquake at nearby Morgan Hill damaged the masonry supporting the dome of the 36-inch refractor. Seismic reinforcement is expected to be completed early next year as protection against future jolts.
Lick, of course, can no longer claim the singular preeminence of its earliest years, but its present generation of stargazers are upholding the observatory’s grand tradition.
In recent years, they have been in the forefront of studies of such distant objects as quasars, which appear to be young galaxies in what Lick astronomer Joseph Miller calls “their adolescent stage.” These observations are vital to understanding the history of the universe. Because the light began its journey toward Earth many billions of years ago, the telescope that captures it acts as a time machine, providing a glimpse of the universe as it was in its early days.
Other notable work by Lick astronomers includes Sandra Faber’s leading role in the international effort that recently discovered what has whimsically been called the “great attracter.”
After measuring the velocities of 400 galaxies--half of them observed from Lick--the team concluded that many, including the Milky Way’s own local group of galaxies, are “falling” toward the constellation Centaurus. This breach in the orderly expansion of the universe is apparently being caused by an enormously powerful gravitational force, possibly exerted by a supercluster of galaxies 150 million to 300 million light years away.
Lick has also led astronomical observatories in the use of new solid-state electronics, much of it developed in the valley below Mt. Hamilton. At a centennial seminar for science writers held in the observatory’s Victorian headquarters building, Faber estimated that such aids had increased the data collection rate by 100,000 times in the past two decades.
But the Lick astronomers’ most dedicated efforts are being directed toward the giant multiple-mirror Keck telescope in the final stages of construction atop 13,796-foot Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
The first of a new generation of big telescopes, exceeding in size even Caltech’s 200-inch Palomar mirror and the Soviet Union’s 236-inch mirror, the current record-holders, Keck telescope is a joint effort of Lick and Caltech and is being financed largely by a $70-million grant from another entrepreneurial benefactor, the W. M. Keck Foundation, founded by the oil tycoon.
Instead of using one impossibly large disk, which would deform under its own weight, the reflecting surface will be made up of 36 smaller hexagonal mirrors, each 72 inches in diameter. Fitted together like a mosaic, they will offer a total diameter of 400 inches, or 10 meters, with a light-gathering capability four times that of Palomar.
To compensate for the effects of wind, temperature change and shifting weight, computers will have to make fine adjustments in the individual mirrors as many as a hundred times a second to ensure perfect alignment. The intricate system of sensors, supports and controls for the mirrors is being completed at UC’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
Not surprisingly for so complex a technology, there have been glitches. The first mirror to be ground has turned out to perform at only 30% to 60% of specifications, Faber said. That has created grumbling among Lick astronomers about the ability of the contractor, Itek Optical Systems of Lexington, Mass., to execute the ingenious “aspherical” curvature of the individual mirrors devised by Lawrence Berkeley astrophysicist Jerry Nelson. “They screwed up,” Faber said.
Even so, Itek expects to get the job done, and “first light,” the moment when telescopes are turned skyward and capture the glimmer of a distant object for the first time, is scheduled for 1990. Nearly full operations should begin a year or two later.
Keck’s perch high above the clouds for much of the year will make the big telescope especially valuable for observing in the infrared region, a portion of the spectrum normally absorbed by water in the atmosphere at lower altitudes. Invisible to the human eye, such radiation typically comes from hot, turbulent regions, like the center of our galaxy. Many astronomers believe it may be the site of a large black hole, which acts as the galaxy’s power plant.
One thing the observatory will not be short of is oxygen. Unlike those of other large telescopes going up on the crest of the ancient volcano--involving British, French, Canadian and Dutch participation--Keck’s control room will be pressurized, like the interior of an airliner. Otherwise, Faber said, the thin air might interfere with thought processes. “Once a graduate student (at Keck) went off to the bathroom and was lost for two hours,” she said.
Though much of the research at the cutting edge of astronomy will eventually transfer to Keck, the Lick Observatory should continue to be highly productive. Its premier instrument, the 3-decade-old 120-inch Shane reflector, remains competitive with larger telescopes, mainly because Lick astronomers have made shrewd use of computer technologies. “The computer revolution turned astronomy upside down,” Faber said.
Lick has been in the thick of that revolution, particularly in its use of charged-coupled devices. The tiny light-sensitive chips can capture a far larger share of the photons--particles of light--trickling down onto a mirror from faint celestial objects than can photographic plates or even electronic image-intensifier tubes.
Turned into electronic signals, the images can be displayed on television-type screens, enhanced by computer to reveal subtle details and stored on tape or disks for future examination. Most important, the electronic manipulation lets astronomers “subtract” the interfering glow of city lights that would otherwise overwhelm the faint light of far-off objects. “I’ve observed San Jose more than any other object in the sky,” quipped Miller, Lick’s deputy director.
The electronic wizardry also enables astronomers to do their observing from the comfort of enclosed control rooms rather than in the chilly night air of an open dome. And in the future, they will be observing even more remotely. Faber pointed out that images from the Mauna Kea telescope, for instance, may eventually be relayed by satellite to consoles in California so that the astronomers will not have to leave home.
The jewel in Lick’s instrumental crown is the 2-year-old Hamilton spectroscope, a The jewel in Lick’s instrumental crown is the 2-year-old Hamilton spectroscope, a device that can resolve starlight, even that of the most distant objects, into its component colors with unmatched precision.
device that can resolve starlight, even that of the most distant objects, into its component colors with unmatched precision. These spectra give basic information about the star from its chemical composition to its speed of rotation to its very destiny. It will soon be supplemented by a second instrument that will be able to produce spectra from as many as 100 stars simultaneously by using 100 optical fibers to carry light from the telescope to the spectroscope.
“We can remain competitive for some years to come,” Miller said.
That surely would have pleased James Lick, who liked to see his money well spent. Lick, in life, never got to the mountaintop. But in January, 1887--11 years after his death at age 80--his remains were reburied at the base of the Clark telescope, a year and half before the observatory’s formal opening.
Some like to say the old boy’s ghost emerges at night to view his great gift to astronomy. And they tell of a visiting astronomer who was so rattled by the noises that a mischievous graduate student made while hidden in the space under the dome’s movable floor that the guest observer fled in fright.
Yet even if one does not put any credence in such ghostly tales, it is as clear as the view through the busy instruments of James Lick’s observatory that his spirit very much inhabits this grand old California institution.
