Isabel Creek

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.

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 Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, a unit of the University of California Natural Reserve System, is an ecological reserve and biological field station in Santa Clara County, California. It is located on 3,260 acres (13.2 km2) in the Diablo Range, northwest of Mount Hamilton, at 1,500 ft (460 m) elevation. The land, part of the 19th century Mexican land grant of Rancho Cañada de Pala, was donated to the University of California on December 1, 2007 by the Blue Oak Ranch Trust, an anonymous benefactor. Overnight accommodations for academic researchers and educational groups may be made by permission only.

Grant Lake, also called Halls Valley Lake, is an artificial lake located in Santa Clara County, California. It is located 1,598 ft (487 m) above sea level within Joseph D. Grant County Park.

Rancho Cañada de Pala was a 15,714-acre (63.59 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Clara County, California given in 1839 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to José de Jesús Bernal. The origin of the name Cañada de Pala is the subject of debate. The word "pala" translates as "shovel" in Spanish, but means "water", in many Native Californian dialects. The grant was in the foothills and mountains of the Diablo Range, east of San Jose and included most of what is now Grant Ranch Park and all of present-day Blue Oak Ranch Reserve.

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.

The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by the University of California Observatories, with headquarters on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus, where its scientific staff moved in the mid-1960s. It is named after James Lick. The first new moon of Jupiter to be identified since the time of Galileo, Amalthea, the planet's fifth moon, was discovered at this observatory in 1892.

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 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."