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5 unusual facts about Mount Wilson Observatory


Birr Castle

Its record size was not surpassed until the completion of the 254-cm (100-in) Hooker Telescope in 1917.

David Malcolm Renton

Renton's first major solo job was the construction of the observation tower of the Mt. Wilson Observatory.

George Rodney Willis

Projects on the boards during the time that Willis worked with Hunt and his partner Elmer Grey include:the Edith Daniels House, in Aradia, CA (1904), the Livingston Jenks House, San Rafael, CA (1904), the Astronomer's House (aka The Monastery) and other buildings, at the Mount Wilson Observatory, Mount Wilson, CA (1904), the Thomas H. Foote House, East Colorado Street, Pasadena, CA (1905), and the J.W. Gillespie House, in Montecito, CA.

Harry O. Wood

He would serve as Wood's mentor who took his advice and went to work at the Bureau of Standards in Washington D. C. where a relationship was developed with George Ellery Hale, the director of Carnegie's Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena.

Mount Hubble

It was named after American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Mount Wilson Observatory, 1919–53; in 1923 he furnished the first certain evidence that extragalactic nebulae were situated far outside the boundaries of our own galaxy, in fact were independent stellar systems.


Nicholas Mayall

However, he took a hiatus from pursuing his advanced degree and went to work as a human computer at the Mount Wilson Observatory from 1929–1931, where he assisted luminaries such as Edwin Hubble, Paul W. Merrill, and Milton L. Humason.

Rogier Windhorst

He received his Ph.D in astronomy in 1984 from the University of Leiden and did post doctorate work at Mt.Wilson and Las Campanas Observatories.


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