100-Inch Reflecting Telescope

The 100-inch telescope at Mt. Wilson. Image courtesy of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Not satisfied with the ability of the 60-inch telescope at Mt. Wilson to reveal detail of the nebulae, astronomer George Ellery Hale raised funds to build an even larger telescope, with a mirror 100 inches in diameter.  The ability of the large telescope to capture faint light and to show exquisite detail was so perfect that it could have detected a candle 8,000 miles away.  The image at left shows the massive dome of the 100-inch telescope.