[ATM] astronomers in collision \ Re: 7 inch spherical mirror

[David Weinshenker <daze39@earthlink.net>]

I've seen a couple of different versions of the history of the "great
falling-out" between Ritchey and Hale: wikipedia's article on the
Ritchey-Chretien telescope design includes this bit: "Ritchey intended
for the 200-inch Hale telescope to be an RCT. His design would provide
sharper images over a larger usable field of view. However, he and Hale
had a falling out. Hale refused to adopt the new design, with its complex
curvatures, and Ritchey left the project. (Given the large delays in
construction, Hale could be forgiven for some amount of risk aversion.)"

However, other sources (e.g., Ronald Florence's "The Perfect Machine:
Building the Palomar Telescope" (p.48) tells roughly the same story
about an earlier instrument, the 100-inch "Hooker" telescope at Mt.
Wilson: "Ritchey had his own ideas about telescope design. At his home
laboratory he had been experimenting with a deep fast primary mirror
and a complex hyperboloid curve in the secondary mirror. The resulting
design would produce a telescope with a large field of sharp focus and
a shorter tube design [...]. For the careful photographs Ritchey liked
to take of deep-space objects, his design would be a boon. But a wide
field of sharp focus was not necessary for the spectrographic studies
that would form a substantial portion of the Mount Wilson telescopes.
Given the difficulties of fund-raising, Hale and Adams would not
support experiments on Ritchey's new designs. Ritchey, chafing that
his ideas were being ignored, approached Hooker privately for privately
for money to set up his own shop. Hale [was] outraged that a colleague
would try to divert Hooker's funds from 'the benefit of the Observatory
as a whole'..."

First light on the 100-inch was in late 1917, and Florence's account
(p. 61) has Ritchey leaving Mt. Wilson at the end of World War I (1918)
and settling in Paris soon after (where he refined his design in
collaboration with Chretien) - so by this account Hale and Ritchey,
former collaborators, had long since parted ways by the time the
200-inch project got under way, and Ritchey was never directly
involved. (Hale and Pease prepared the earliest sketches for what
eventually became the design of the Palomar telescope in 1921, and
small-scale models of early concepts were presented at conferences
in the mid-1920's; the project was funded by a grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation in 1928.)

-dave w


David Harbour wrote:
> He was a genius, Francis-
> 
> He followed his mentor, Andrew Ainslee Common, and noted the design features 
> of his 60" reflector, and knew that Ainslee just had not "developed" them 
> enough; so, Ritchey designed and re-invented the modern, symmetrical 
> equatorial mounted Cassegrain reflector of large aperture design; the 
> difference between his and Ainslee's was about two whole orders of 
> magnitude. It led rapidly to the 100" Hooker telescope; this is where 
> Ritchey began to run into trouble because of his recalcitrant, quirky 
> personality; this would dog him for decades until he more or less decided to 
> hide out, so to speak, on his citrus ranch in Asuza, California. Ritchey got 
> "fired" from part of the 100" project; he always favored the fork; but, by 
> Lordie, they were going to have a two pier closed English yoke for that 
> instrument; so Francis J. Pease finished the mounting design, but kept 
> Ritchey's mercury bearing floatation system to carry 95% of the weight of 
> the instrument.
> 
> Very few people know that it took the better part of ten years to debug the 
> 100"; there was flexure when it was turned in right ascension towards the 
> horizon, and other problems. But what finally emerged was a masterpiece; 
> Ritchey's work on figuring the mirror guaranteed that. For a while, he was 
> even fired from the optical part; but they got him back for that.
> 
> I have that fine portrait of Ritchey, Chretien, looking on at their new 
> creation, the 20" first RC Cassegrain, ever. If you, or anyone else would 
> like it, it is pretty easy to send in an html email, or attached to a plain 
> text email. Let me know-
> 
> R-101
> 
> P.S.- I have no small satisfaction in noting that his tube looks very much 
> like mine, but has only one bay, instead of the two cantilevered bays in my 
> tube; wouldn't you know that I would imitate the genius. Ask for the 
> picture.
> 
> P.P.S.- The account in Osterbrock's book about how Ritchey dropped the 40" 
> mirror off of the sling it was in, being moved with a fork lift, and mangled 
> the observatory director's hand, who tried to stop the mirror -ye gads!- a 
> 40" mirror, full  thickness!!! They let it lay on the concrete for about a 
> week, for fear of finding out how badly damaged it was (the director's hand 
> was badly damaged). When they finally turned it over, only a "smallish" chip 
> was gone from the perimeter. This was the last straw for Ritchey at the 
> Naval Observatory; he got fired. Osterbrock tells of his other adventures in 
> his book; personal, scandalous secrets about Hale were told in the book 
> also.
> 
> Osterbrock makes out Hale and Adams as the bad boys who treated Ritchey with 
> shameless visciousness. Ritchey competed with them for his network, world 
> wide, of the coelostat fed tower telescopes (I have pictures of both 
> designs, can send also) while they were desperately seeking funds for the 5 
> meter; this really angered them. Out of spite, they did not provide the 5 
> meter with RC optics.
> 
> The book is well illustrated. "Ritchey, Hale, and Big American Telescope" by 
> Donald Osterbrock; University of Arizona Press (or): Arizona State 
> University Press.
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