Hale Telescope in the context of "George Ellery Hale"

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⭐ Core Definition: Hale Telescope

The Hale Telescope is a 200-inch (5.1 m), f/3.3 reflecting telescope at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, US, named after astronomer George Ellery Hale. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1928, he orchestrated the planning, design, and construction of the observatory, but with the project ending up taking 20 years he did not live to see its commissioning. The Hale was groundbreaking for its time, with double the diameter of the second-largest telescope, and pioneered many new technologies in telescope mount design and in the design and fabrication of its large aluminum coated "honeycomb" low thermal expansion Pyrex mirror. It was completed in 1949 and is still in active use.

The Hale Telescope represented the technological limit in building large optical telescopes for over 30 years. It was the largest telescope in the world from its construction in 1949 until the Soviet BTA-6 was built in 1976, and the second largest until the construction of the Keck Observatory Keck 1 in Hawaii in 1993.

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Hale Telescope in the context of Palomar Observatory

The Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in the Palomar Mountains of San Diego County, California, United States. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observatory is granted to Caltech and its research partners, which include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Yale University, and the National Astronomical Observatories of China.

The observatory operates several telescopes, including the 200-inch (5.1 m) Hale Telescope, the 48-inch (1.2 m) Samuel Oschin telescope (dedicated to the Zwicky Transient Facility, ZTF), the Palomar 60-inch (1.5 m) Telescope, and the 30-centimetre (12-inch) Gattini-IR telescope. Decommissioned instruments include the Palomar Testbed Interferometer and the first telescopes at the observatory, an 18-inch (46 cm) Schmidt camera from 1936.

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Hale Telescope in the context of Photon counting

Photon counting is a technique in which individual photons are counted using a single-photon detector (SPD). A single-photon detector emits a pulse of signal for each detected photon. The counting efficiency is determined by the quantum efficiency and the system's electronic losses.

Many photodetectors can be configured to detect individual photons, each with relative advantages and disadvantages. Common types include photomultipliers, geiger counters, single-photon avalanche diodes, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors, transition edge sensors, and scintillation counters. Charge-coupled devices can be used.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Palomar Observatory ← Photon counting
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
F-number → Reflecting telescope → Palomar Observatory → San Diego County, California → California → George Ellery Hale → Rockefeller Foundation → Telescope → Telescope mount → Thermal expansion → Pyrex → List of largest optical reflecting telescopes → Soviet Union → BTA-6 → Keck Observatory → Hawaii →