Seventy-five years ago hundreds of astronomers and VIPs gathered at Palomar Mountain for the dedication of the the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. Named for astrophysicist George Ellery Hale, who proposed it in 1928, the Hale Telescope was the largest working telescope on Earth at that time.
Man’s Window to Stars On Palomar Mountain Dedicated to Science
High Honors Paid George E. Hale for Visioning ‘Big Eye’
By Vincent Dunne
MT. PALOMAR, June 4 (Special)–Humble and admittedly awed by thoughts of strange new mysteries their “Big Eye” may reveal, eager scientists today took over Palomar Observatory atop this northeast San Diego County mountain.
Yesterday, 20 years to the month after the unprecedented project was conceived, the $6,550,000 observatory was dedicated and the 200-inch mirror reflector was formally named the Hale Telescope.
The name is in honor of the late Dr. George Ellery Hale, whose foresight and leadership is credited with bringing realization of the telescope. He died in 1938.
Present on the speaker’s platform, his widow, white-haired and radiating happiness, received a standing ovation from the throng of 900 invited guests when the honor to her late husband was announced.
At the start of the dedication, James Rathwell Page, who introduced the speakers, set the afternoon program’s almost reverent theme.
“O, ye stars of heaven, praise ye the Lord,” Page, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology, recited from a Bible canticle.
Then, and often throughout the eight brief speeches that followed, the song of a mocking bird came down from the curving, 135-foot high ceiling of the observatory’s Big Dome. The bird had flown in through the revolving dome’s slit to the sky.
“It is with great pride that the institute today dedicates this great observatory to the service of science and of mankind,” Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, Caltech president, said in the dedicatory address.
‘Few Steps Farther’
“We know not what new knowledge to come will lead men a few steps farther along the road toward a more perfect understanding of this great universe.
“A 60-inch telescope raised problems only a 100-inch could answer. The 100-inch called for the 200-inch. This great telescope before us today marks the culmination of 200 years of astronomical research. Each advance has raised new questions. For generations to come, this telescope will be a key instrument in man’s search for knowledge.”
The audience was seated in chairs on the Big Dome’s vast main floor. The big steel-beamed telescope structure and the 200-inch glass disc which will “see” farther than any reflector in history, was directly over the listeners. A score of those present were San Diego county civic officials and leaders. Dr. Vannevar Bush, president of Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., which, with Caltech, will supervise the Palomar project and the 100-inch telescope atop Mr. Wilson more than 100 miles to the north, said:
“It is a great truth of science that every ending has a beginning, each question answered leads to new problems. In no other field do men confront mystery and challenge like that which looms down upon the astronomer in the long watches of the night.
“The astronomer knows at first hand how slight is our earth, how slight and fleeting are mankind.
“Seeking truth, we can look forward to a world in which there will be no insane suicide of the races. ‘Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ “
“To Raymond B. Fosdick president of Rockefeller Foundation, which has financed the observatory, the search for truth was termed “the noblest expression of the human spirit.”
‘Window to Stars’
“In this dedication,” he said, “we are face to face with the unpredictable consequences of knowledge. We cannot even guess what will come from this telescope, or to what ends the insights we gain will be employed.
“When the giant cyclotron was built, nobody was thinking of the atom bomb. Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral foundations, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes that will bury the hopes of men beyond recovery.
‘Man on Tiptoe’
“This great new window to the stars,” Fosdick said, “will bring into fresh focus the mystery of the universe, its order, beauty and power. Why are we here on this dwarf planet? Have other planets burst into consciousness like our own and is there an answering intelligence in space? In the words of the Psalmist, what is man?
“This telescope is man on tiptoe, reaching for relevancy and meaning.”
Dr. Max Mason, chairman of the observatory council, ended his comments almost with a song. He said:
“With clumsy fingers, man has fumbled over the keyboard of a vast organ. He has called forth only a few shy notes, but of a sweetness so piercing that we tremble at the thought of the glorious harmonies to come.”
