[xoxoxoBruce]

You know Hubble, they named that awesome space telescope after him.
This Mack truck is hauling the 100 inch telescope mirror up Mt Wilson for the telescope Hubble would discover galaxies with.



I love those old chain-drive Macks.

Courtesy the Los Angeles Public Library
From the mule trains used to hoist the 60-inch mirror to the mountaintop to the cold nights Edwin Hubble spent rewriting our knowledge of the cosmos, Mount Wilson represents the evolution of the modern observatory, and one of the most important scientific places in history. George Ellery Hale's 60-inch scope, which is no longer used for research, was used for studies of the spectral classification of stars, which forms the basis of modern astronomy. The 60-inch Hale telescope was the largest in the world 100 years ago, but within 10 years, it was replaced by a 100-inch scope next door. Using the 100-incher (pictured en route to the summit in 1917), Edwin Hubble discovered that the smudges of "nebulae" in the sky were actually distant galaxies; that the universe is expanding; and that the speed of that expansion is commensurate with a Big Bang creation. Mount Wilson was the premier observatory in the world for 40 years, until L.A.'s brightness led astronomers to look south.

If you had a 100 incher, you could be famous too.