Talk:Lowell Observatory

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Any idea on how to close or remove the gap between the summary and table of contents? It just doesn't look neat and professional for an article of high importance. OlEnglish (talk) 15:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised there isn't more discussion of Percival Lowell and Mars, especially with the references to Mars Hill, etc. I thought this was one of the most commonly known facts about Lowell - that he used the telescope to observe Mars' surface and that he thought there were canals and thus maybe canal builders on Mars. It turned out to not be true but in terms of science history it was important (of course, that there was water on Mars in the past DID turn out to be true so he was not all that far off). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.191.184.246 (talk) 15:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I do realize there is a separate article about Percival Lowell, but still the fact that this telescope was used for at least 15 years to study mars should be mentioned here also "For the next fifteen years he studied Mars extensively, and made intricate drawings of the surface markings as he perceived them. Lowell published his views in three books: Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906), and Mars As the Abode of Life (1908). With these writings, Lowell more than anyone else popularized the long-held belief that these markings showed that Mars sustained intelligent life forms.[8]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._Lowell — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.191.184.246 (talk) 15:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Ground and polished !

Saying that a mirror is "polished" is and all-too-common mistake seen in print. "Ground and polished" is correct.
Much of the whole section about the new Discovery Channel Telescope seems to have been directly plagarized from an article -- and an article by a knucklehead who didn't know anything about telescopes and observatories, at that.
Much of it was simply babbling that didn't make sense by someone who was using big, vague words that didn't really say anything.
That article did not give wikilinks to places and things that really do have articles in the Wikipedia already, such as Happy Jack, Arizona, and many of the technical words in telescopes. The piece seems to have been some kind of a "public relations blurb" written by a "public relations babbler" - to put the phrase kindly. The diameter of the mirror was given in meters with no attempt to give a conversion into inches -- I added this. Also, nobody gives a hoot how thick is the material that is used to make the mirror of a reflecting telescope. All of the work is done by the aluminum that is deposited on the surface of the glass, Pyrex, quartz or whatever. Also, nobody gives a hoot about the "educational value" of a research telescope, so all of that writing was just babbling.
Getting to the fact of "ground and polished", have you ever seen the unused blank for the 200-inch Mt. Palomar telescope. It is on display in the Corning Glass Museum in Corning, N.Y., and I have seen it. That first one could not be used because it has air bubbles in it, so they made and used the second one. Both of them were huge, flat on both sides, and just as thick in the middle as the were on the edges. THICK. There is no way that any of these mirrors could be polished into shape (!). That is the way that it is. That second mirror "blank" was cast and cooled in New York, and then it was shipped by train to Pasadena, Calif. (the California Institute of Technology).
Then at Cal Tech, they GROUND on it for years until it has nearly the parabolic shape that they needed.
Finally, they were able to start polishing on the mirror, and they polished on it for a couple of years until it was smoothly parabolic, and then put it into a chamber for depositing the layer of aluminum on its reflecting surface. All of this grinding and polishing was slowed down somewhat because World War II was right in the middle of it, and the country needed the manpower elsewhere. So, all of that took over 12 years in Pasadena, and then they were ready to send the mirror by truck to Mt. Palomar. The last stretch was up the mountain on a winding, dirt road.
Finally, the Mt. Palomar Telescope and its observatory was ready for use beginning in 1948. Its blank had arrived in Pasadena in about 1935 or '36. Then came a big heap of GRINDING and polishing.
98.67.163.16 (talk) 21:44, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

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