ABC Wednesday - Yerkes Observatory

This is the 40 inch refractor telescope inside the 90 foot dome at Yerkes.  It was built in 1896 by Warner and Swasey and was the largest telescope in the world at that time.  The floor is actually a 73 foot diameter elevating floor that would take you up to the platform to actually view.  

 Life is all about perspective.

 What's that up yonder?

It's spiderman!

The story goes that it was a joke from one astronomer to another.  How he got it up there no one knows.  Some mysteries remain.  All sorts of discoveries were made at Yerkes during her heyday such as sun monitoring, objects within our solar system, the slow motions of stars orbiting around each other, methods to measure infrared radiation, white dwarf stars.  Even Albert Einstein once studied there.  

Today the University of Chicago uses the facility for ongoing research and educational programs.  There is no longer any active observing going on since there are bigger and better telescopes that have been invented.  Yerkes is open to the public every Saturday for tours but no public viewing which is too bad since the skies over Wisconsin, on a clear night, are spectacular.

To see my other posts of Yerkes, go to the last two days.  I've joined ABC Wednesday, a meme that folks post from a letter of the alphabet each Wednesday.  I've done this before and it's a lot of fun.  To see other photographers thoughts on Y click HERE.