Big and Bright: A History of the McDonald ObservatoryUniversity of Texas Press, 13 sept. 2013 - 224 pages By day, every year over 40,000 visitors pour in. Across the Rio Grande, a hundred miles away, Mexican mountaineers use the white domes as landmarks. By night, perched almost 7,000 feet above the sleeping, earthbound world, astronomers probe the secrets of the night sky. This is the University of Texas McDonald Observatory, one of the world's largest university-operated astronomical installations. Big and Bright: A History of the McDonald Observatory is the story of a remarkable collaboration between two major universities, one a prestigious private school, the other a growing southwestern state institution. The University of Chicago had astronomers, but its Yerkes Observatory was aging and underfunded; the University of Texas had money for an observatory but no working astronomer to staff it. Out of their mutual need, they formed a thirty-year compact for a joint venture. Unusual in its day, the Yerkes-McDonald connection presaged the future. In this arrangement, one can see some of the beginnings of today's consortium "big science." Now the McDonald Observatory's early history can be put in proper perspective. Blessed with a gifted and driving founding director, the world's (then) second-largest telescope, and an isolation that permitted it to be virtually the only major astronomical observatory that continued operations throughout World War II, the staff of McDonald Observatory helped lay the foundations of modern astrophysics during the 1940s. For over a decade after the war, a lonely mountaintop in West Texas was the mecca that drew nearly all the most important astronomers from all over the world. Based on personal reminiscences and archival material, as well as published historical sources, Big and Bright is one of the few histories of a major observatory, unique in its focus on the human side of the story. |
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... McDonald's Telescope The Dedication War Years, Struve Years . Triumphs and Transitions 12. . Texas Independence . Launching the Modern Era Interregnum Epilogue APPENDIX A The Last Will and Testament of William Johnson McDonald APPENDIX ...
... McDonald Observatory was born. One can see in its founding some of the roots of consortium “big science,” and as such this event had a meaning much larger than just another big ... McDonald Observatory's largest telescope, the 107-inch.
... McDonald Observatory. Just below the final rise of the mountain, cars pull in and out of the W. L. Moody Jr. Visitor Center. Above, in the biggest of several domes, a guide describes the 107-inch telescope to a small group, some of the ...
A History of the McDonald Observatory David S. Evans, J. Derral Mulholland ... telescopes with the fifty or so astronomers who wish to use them. Transport ... telescope from a dimly lit control panel. The astronomer might be standing ...
... McDonald a rich man. Depression moved to boom time, and the spirit of the time was such that McDonald abandoned the ... telescope, and he and the cabinetmaker sometimes observed the heavens from the backyard. Indeed, with increasing wealth, ...
Table des matières
3 | |
12 | |
The TexasChicago Agreement | 21 |
Choosing and Developing the Site | 33 |
Triumphs and Transitions | 106 |
Interregnum | 141 |
Epilogue | 153 |
APPENDIX A The Last Will and Testament | 165 |
The Telescopes of the University | 171 |
80 | 177 |
Autres éditions - Tout afficher
Big and Bright: A History of the McDonald Observatory David S. Evans,John Derral Mulholland Affichage d'extraits - 1986 |
Big and Bright: A History of the McDonald Observatory David Stanley Evans,John Derral Mulholland Aucun aperçu disponible - 1986 |