Palomar History Photo of the Week - December 14, 2009

The men who built the dome of the 200-inch Hale Telescope

Group photos are great. This one comes from the collection of Earnest A. Whichelo, who back in the day was the manager of Consolidated Western Steel. CWS was the main contractor who built the dome for the 200-inch telescope. From the looks of the dome behind the group I am pretty sure that the photo was taken in 1938. Click on the photo and you can easily see each and every face of the crew that did the work.

The photo comes from a collection of photos donated to the observatory by Cindy Johnson, daughter of Earnest Whichelo. I posted another photo from this collection in a post over a year ago. Let me quote now what I said then:

We thank Ms. Johnson and the others over the years that have returned parts of Palomar Observatory's history back to us. Each photo is a treasure and reminds us of the tremendous work done by the people who made the Hale Telescope what it is.

Recently the observatory has been very fortunate as a many individuals have been coming forth with donations of photos and other items from our past. We are in the process of scanning and will share more of these here on the blog and eventually on the observatory's main website and out for people to see when the visit the observatory in person.