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Lick additionally requested that Santa Clara County construct a "first-class road" to the summit, completed in 1876.[1] Lick chose John Wright, of San Francisco's Wright & Sanders firm of architects, to design both the Observatory and the Astronomer's House.[2] All of the construction materials had to be brought to the site by horse and mule-drawn wagons, which could not negotiate a steep grade. To keep the grade below 6.5%, the road had to take a very winding and sinuous path, which the modern-day road (California State Route 130) still follows. Tradition maintains that this road has exactly 365 turns (This is approximately correct, although uncertainty as to what should count as a turn makes precise verification impossible). The road is closed when there is snow at Lick Observatory.[3]
The first telescope installed at the observatory was a 12-inch (300-millimeter) refractor made by Alvan Clark. Astronomer E. E. Barnard used the telescope to make "exquisite photographs of comets and nebulae", according to D. J. Warner of Warner & Swasey Company.[1]
- ^ a b Kirby-Smith, H. T. (1976). U.S. Observatories. New York, US: Litton Educational Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-0-442-24451-4.
- ^ California Architect and Business News, 9/1881; Lick Observatory Archives.
- ^ Mount Hamilton (California)