Wisconsin’s Yerkes Observatory Has New Ownership.

[KingClinton]

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&u ... sPpPRTg5gA

[Lady Fraktor]

That is good news, much better than the plan land developers had for it.

[smp]

Great news! Thanks very much for posting this, Clinton!

smp

[Unitron48]

Good news all around! Great that we can preserve these historic scopes!!

Dave

[Makuser]

Hello Clinton. This is great news. Saving a vintage classic like this is wonderful. And it appears if the expanded parking lot permits are approved it will be open to the public.
I did an article on the largest Alvan Clark refractors in the US about 3 years ago on the old AF forum. Here is an excerpt about the Yerkes Observatory and some condensed footnotes:

Here is the Yerkes Observatory at Williams Bay (Lake Geneva), Wisconsin. The large 20 ton 40” Alvan Clark telescope was installed on 1897. Ir was the insistence of astronomer George Ellery Hale, who inspired Charles T. Yerkes, a Chicago transportation tycoon, to commission this telescope, regardless of what the cost, as long as it was the biggest in the world. This telescope was used to measure changes in near by star positions accurately enough to calculate their distance from earth.
Post Notes 1: No further telescopes were built larger than the 40” Yerkes in the United States, as it was felt that any larger size of objective would collapse under it’s own weight.
Post Notes 2: There was a 49.21” refractor built in France in 1900, which was eventually dismantled and scrapped the same year.
Post Notes 3: I should also mention that the large telescopes of this era were on Warner and Swasey mounts. These worked just like a pendulum clock with weights, since there was little or no electricity or motors at the time. The 40" Yerkes was so well balanced, that all 20 tons could be moved by hand!
Post Notes 4: So goes it with the progress in optics. First the large reflectors, then the Schmidt Cameras, then the Schmidt-Cassegrains, and now the Ritchey-Chretiens in our major observatories. They all took over the long domain of the classic large refractors.

I hope that all of you enjoy this additional historical information, and thanks Clinton for finding and posting wonderful link.

[s3igell]

Let's hope that the Yerkes Observatory can remain viable in some sort of Public Educational and Astronomy Advocacy Role - much like the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff AZ.

While Southeastern Wisconsin will never again be Prime Territory for Astronomical Observation, I'll bet that views of Jupiter and Saturn would still be Wild through the 40in Scope.
I got to see Mars through the Alvin Clarke 24in as part of the 75th Anniversary of Discovery of Pluto in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. (Yes, I know... Mars instead of Pluto, but it was the object presented...)

[helicon]

This is great news. We are likewise privileged to have an Alvan Clark refractor named "Leah" at the Chabot Science Center in Oakland, which is used by the East Bay Astronomical Society, our local group. They are amazing instruments. The refractor was installed in the obsy in 1883.

[pakarinen]

I toured Yerkes a few years ago before UC decided to shut it down. The tour guide was also a caretaker or something and commented that he used the 40-in for personal visual observing. Not a bad job IMO, regardless of pay.