Telescope Construction
The building that houses the telescope was built by McAlpine-Robertson Company of Vancouver for a price of $75,000. Both the building and dome, made by Warner and Swasey Co, are double walled.
The mirror weighs approximately 2000 kilograms and was made by the Saint-Gobain company in their Charleroi glass works in Antwerp, Belgium and shipped only a week before the start of World War I. It was then ground in the United States at the John A. Brashear company in Pittsburgh. The mirror had to be reground twice, once due to a mysterious scratch and the 2nd time due to a flaw in the grinding. This added 2 years to the completion time of the telescope, pushing the date back to 1918. The completed mirror was hauled up Little Saanich Mountain by horse and wagon.
Read more about this topic: Dominion Astrophysical Observatory
Famous quotes containing the words telescope and/or construction:
“The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow, outvalues all the theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)