Lick Observatory

The James Lick Telescope is a refracting telescope built in 1888. It has a lens 91 centimetres (36 in) in diameter—a major achievement in its day. The instrument remains in operation and public viewing is allowed on a limited basis. Also called the "Great Lick Refractor" or simply "Lick Refractor", it was the largest refracting telescope in the world until 1897 and now ranks third, after the 40-inch refractor at the Yerkes Observatory and the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. The telescope is located at the University of California's Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton at an elevation of 1,283 metres (4,209 ft) above sea level. The instrument is housed inside a dome that is powered by hydraulic systems that raise and lower the floor, rotate the dome and drive the clock mechanism to track the Earth's rotation. The original hydraulic arrangement still operates today, with the exception that the original wind-powered pumps that once filled the reservoirs have been replaced with electric pumps. James Lick is entombed below the floor of the observing room of the telescope. Here are some excerpts from an 1894 book describing the telescope:

The Anna L. Nickel telescope is a 1-meter reflecting telescope located at Lick Observatory in the U.S. state of California. The smaller dome on the main building at Lick had originally held the secondhand 12-inch Clark refracting telescope, the first telescope to be used at Lick. In 1979 it was replaced with the Anna L. Nickel telescope, a 1-meter reflecting telescope. The telescope is named for Anna L. Nickel, a San Francisco native who donated $50,000, a large portion of her estate, to the Observatory. The Nickel telescope was built entirely by UC Santa Cruz personnel and utilized many spare parts, including a replacement mirror for the Crossley Reflector. It eased demand for time on the 120-inch C. Donald Shane telescope by taking on research programs that do not require the Shane's greater light-gathering power. Due to its optical design, it can use the same instruments as the Shane so instruments can be tested on it.

Mount Hamilton is a mountain in the Diablo Range in Santa Clara County, California. The mountain's peak, at 4,265 feet (1,300 m), overlooks the heavily urbanized Santa Clara Valley and is the site of Lick Observatory, the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory. The asteroid 452 Hamiltonia, discovered in 1899, is named after the mountain. Golden eagle nesting sites are found on the slopes of Mount Hamilton. On clear days, Mount Tamalpais, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Monterey Bay, the Monterey Peninsula, and even Yosemite National Park are visible from the summit of the mountain.

Tauchmann telescope is a 0.5 m (22-inch) reflector atop the water tank at Huyghens Peak. It is part of the Lick Observatory at Mount Hamilton. The telescope has been constructed by George Tauchmann, an amateur astronomer from Berkeley, California. In 1937 it was the biggest amateur reflecting telescope in the world. Lick Observatory purchased the telescope in 1950.

The Crossley telescope is a 36-inch (910 mm) reflecting telescope located at Lick Observatory in the U.S. state of California. It was used between 1895 and 2010, and was donated to the observatory by Edward Crossley, its namesake. It was the largest glass reflecting telescope in the United States for several years after its recommissioning in California. Lick Director, James Edward Keeler, remarked of the Crossley in 1900, "... by far the most effective instrument in the Observatory for certain class of astronomical work."

The Automated Planet Finder (APF) Telescope a.k.a. Rocky Planet Finder, is a fully robotic 2.4-meter optical telescope at Lick Observatory, situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California, USA. It is designed to search for extrasolar planets in the range of five to twenty times the mass of the Earth. The instrument will examine about 10 stars per night. Over the span of a decade, the telescope is expected to study 1,000 nearby stars for planets. Its estimated cost was $10 million. The total cost-to-completion of the APF project was $12.37 million. First light was originally scheduled for 2006, but delays in the construction of the major components of the telescope pushed this back to August 2013. It was commissioned in August 2013.The telescope uses high-precision radial velocity measurements to measure the gravitational reflex motion of nearby stars caused by the orbiting of planets. The design goal is to detect stellar motions as small as one meter per second, comparable to a slow walking speed. The main targets will be stars within about 100 light years of the Earth.Early tests show that the performance of the Ken and Gloria Levy Doppler Spectrometer is meeting the design goals. The spectrometer has high throughput and is meeting the design sensitivity of (1.0 m/s), similar to the radial velocity precision of HARPS and HIRES.

The Carnegie telescope (i.e. Carnegie double astrograph) is a twin 20-inch (510 mm) refractor telescope located at Lick Observatory in California, United States. The double telescope's construction began in the 1930s with a grant from the Carnegie institution, although it was not completed until the 1960s when a second lens was added. The telescope is not designed for visual observation, rather it has two lenses used for taking photographs for a specific wavelength recorded on a film emulsion. It was used for photographic sky surveys in the late 20th century, which were successfully completed. The overall goal of the telescope was to study the "problem of galactic rotation and proper motion.. "

The Coudé Auxiliary Telescope (CAT) is a coudé focus telescope located at the Lick Observatory near San Jose, California, south of Shane Dome, Tycho Brahe Peak. The Coudé Auxiliary Telescope, built in 1969, is a 0.6m (24-inch) reflecting telescope in a stationary position at a fixed focus. The CAT is generally used for observation of brighter stars, since it collects less light than the 120-inch Shane.

Joseph D. Grant County Park is the largest county park in Santa Clara County, California. Also known as Grant Ranch Park, this site is situated in the Diablo Range foothills of the eastern Santa Clara Valley. The park is one of 28 owned by Santa Clara County and managed by the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department.Joseph D. Grant, son of a wealthy San Francisco merchant, began buying what had been the Rancho Cañada de Pala Mexican land grant. Grant used the property for grazing cattle, recreating, and hunting game. Joseph D. Grant died in 1942. Santa Clara County purchased approximately 9,553 acres (38.7 km2) of the land in 1975, and created this public park. Joseph D. Grant County Park is situated in the Diablo Range, near Mount Hamilton. Elevations range from about 1,400 feet (427 m) in Halls Valley to peaks over 2,985 feet (910 m) on the Park's eastern edge. This upward gradient leads to even higher peaks in the crest of the range and to Mount Hamilton itself at 4,209 feet (1,283 m). The western slopes of Mount Hamilton drop into Smith Creek which forms the eastern boundary of the Park. The park is known for mountain biking, birdwatching and hiking. Some of the special status biota within Joseph D. Grant County Park are the burrowing owl and the Western pond turtle. The park also offers camp sites.

The San Felipe Hills are a mountain range in Santa Clara County, California, located partly in the city of San Jose.

Isabel Creek is a 18-mile-long (29 km) perennial stream which flows northwesterly along the eastern then northern flank of Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County. It joins Smith Creek to form Arroyo Hondo north of Mt. Hamilton and is part of the southernmost Alameda Creek watershed.

Smith Creek is a 14-mile-long (23 km) perennial stream which flows along the western flank of Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County. The creek begins near Bollinger Ridge, about 7.7 km SxSW of Mount Hamilton.