The work of grinding the mirror for the Hale Telescope - seen here in the Caltech Optical Shop in 1945 - was paused in 1942 due to World War II. It resume in 1945 and in 1947, the mirror was transported to Palomar Observatory and the Hale Telescope dedicated. Credit: Paul Calvert, Los Angeles Times, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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.
Elisa Neckar is senior production editor of Astronomy magazine, and the editor of the Today in the History of Astronomy feature on Astronomy.com.
