History
For Lick Obsevatory's first 55 years of operation, its astronomers relied on two telescopes built in the 19th century. Once considered giants in the field, they had become obsolete. International competition was mounting. The 120-inch reflector addition took 15 years to complete, being completed in 1959. It would be the second-largest telescope in the world, taking its place behind the then enormous 200-inch Palomar Hale Telescope.
Read more about this topic: C. Donald Shane Telescope
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)