in the field of astronomy. Shortly after his appointment to the directorship in 1946, Professor Leo Goldberg initiated planning for a new telescope which should be of the wide-field class suited especially to research on questions of galactic and extragalactic structure. Instruments of the Schmidt design were coming increasingly into use at major observatories, and the Director and staff realized the desirability of adding a large telescope of this type to the equipment of the Observatory. Opportunity for investigations of a kind new to the Observatory programs would thus be combined with facilities for training graduate students in the use of the latest in telescopic developments.
It was estimated that an instrument of requisite power, with the necessary buildings, would require an outlay of $260,000. In June, 1947, the Board of Regents appropriated $150,000 adding $10,000 six months later. At an early stage in the planning, McGregor Fund of Detroit, already a generous contributor to the construction and support of the McMath-Hulbert Solar Observatory, offered the sum of $100,000, a gift accepted by the Regents in January, 1948. The final cost proved to be within a small percentage of the estimate.
A Schmidt-type telescope of the desired size, designed and constructed by the Warner and Swasey Company of Cleveland, had been in successful operation for several years at the Case Institute of Technology's Warner and Swasey Observatory. By contracting with the Warner and Swasey Company for all mechanical parts of an identical telescope, the expenses incidental to drawing up a new design were eliminated. This duplication, incidentally, represents the closest approach to "mass-production" of large telescopes in the history of modern astronomy.
Since the Warner and Swasey Company had discontinued their optical department, the exacting work of grinding and figuring the 36-inch spherical mirror, 24-inch correcting plate, and two 24-inch objective prisms of four-and six-degree refracting angle, respectively, was carried out by the Perkin-Elmer Corporation of Norwalk, Connecticut. The pyrex mirror blank was quickly provided through the kindness of Dr. J. A. Anderson of Mt. Wilson and Palomar Observatories, suitable replacement in due time being undertaken by the University of Michigan. The correcting plate blank is Pittsburgh plate glass, and the blanks for the objective prisms were obtained by Mr. Perkin from Chance Brothers Ltd., in England. In view of the delays normally encountered in obtaining large optical disks, procurement of these was unusually expeditious.
It was mandatory that a rural site be chosen for the new instrument, yet one that would be conveniently accessible from the campus. Peach Mountain, fifteen miles from Ann Arbor, had earlier been selected for proposed observatory expansion, and a reservation of more than 600 acres had been acquired by the University for work in forestry and biology. Within this forested area, well protected from encroachment by private and commercial building, a suitable clearing was chosen, not far from the University radio transmitter tower.
Two buildings were required, one to house the telescope, the other to provide accommodations for observers. Plans for both were drawn up by the Ann Arbor firm of Colvin and Heller, acting in close consultation with the Observatory staff. Both buildings combined efficient design with a simplicity of style suited to the woodland surroundings. The Observatory proper, of sand-colored brick, carries the telescope at the second-floor level; the first floor is given over to garage space and to auxiliary electronic equipment for the telescope
