History
The McDonald Observatory was originally endowed by the Texas banker William Johnson McDonald (1844–1926), who left $850,000 - the bulk of his fortune - to the University of Texas to endow an astronomical observatory. The provision of the will was challenged by McDonald's relatives, but after a long legal fight, construction began at Mt. Locke. The then-unnamed Otto Struve Telescope was dedicated on May 5, 1939, and at that time was the second largest telescope in the world. McDonald Observatory was operated under contract by the University of Chicago until the 1960s, when control was transferred to the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Harlan J. Smith.
Research today at the McDonald Observatory encompasses a wide variety of topics and projects, including planetary systems, stars and stellar spectroscopy, the interstellar medium, extragalactic astronomy, and theoretical astronomy.
Directors
- Otto Struve - 1932 - 1950
- Gerard Peter Kuiper - Sept. 1947 - Dec. 1949, Sept. 1957 - Mar. 1959
- Bengt Georg Daniel Strömgren - Jan. 1951 - Aug. 1957
- William Wilson Morgan - Apr. 1959 - Aug. 1963
- Harlan James Smith - Sept. 1963 - 1989
- Frank N. Bash - 1989 - 2003
- David Lambert - 2003–present
Read more about this topic: McDonald Observatory
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)