The historically significant, 57-foot-long Great Refractor telescope near San Jose is in serious danger, after 110 mile-per-hour winds ripped a steel crescent off the Lick Observatory’s roof, and more storms are on the way.
In the wee early hours of Christmas Day, Mount Hamilton’s Lick Observatory in Santa Clara County was battered by 110 mile-per-hour winds that blew off one its dome’s sliding steel crescents that separate and open the roof for the telescope. And that exposed the pride and joy of Lick Observatory, the famed 57-foot-long Great Refractor. That historically significant telescope was critical to modern astronomy: built in 1888, previously the largest lens telescope in the world, and was famously used to discover Jupiter’s fifth moon (after Galileo had discovered the first four 300 years prior).
The Great Refractor is still an excellent functioning telescope, and a popular visitor attraction. Except it’s not available to visitors right now,
Here’s what Lick Observatory looks like now. The Great Refractor itself is currently covered in black plastic tarps, and was not damaged by the Christmas storm. But it could be damaged this week, with storms rolling in on New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, plus Friday and Saturday too…