Lick Observatory
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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 James Lick telescope, housed in the South (large) Dome of main building
Layout of the Lick Observatory. The dome housing the 91-centimeter (36-inch) Great Lick refractor telescope is on the right.
Lick Observatory in 1900
The Great Lick 91-centimeter (36-inch) refractor, in an 1889 engraving
Mount Hamilton (California)
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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.
Lick Observatory is visible atop Mount Hamilton; hillsides show typical summer golden (dry) vegetation
Hotel Santa Ysabel on the road up Mt. Hamilton just across Smith Creek in 1895, Courtesy of San Jose Public Library, California Room
Numerous times each winter temperatures drop low enough for Mount Hamilton (left) to receive as much as a foot of snow for a day or two.
Mt. Hamilton had a foot of snow on the ground on April 1, 1967