Almost 1,000 guests attended the dedication of the 200-inch Hale Telescope, seated on chairs on the main floor of the Big Dome. Credit: Palomar/Caltech
The brainchild of George Ellery Hale, the 200-inch Hale Telescope was dedicated June 3, 1948, at Palomar Observatory in California. In promoting and fundraising for the project, Hale had a firm science agenda for the scope, but also wrote more fancifully of “the lure of the uncharted seas of space”; though he died in 1938, his widow attended the ceremony, during which the scope was named for her husband. Edwin Hubble created the first image with the Hale Telescope on Jan. 26 of the following year.
