[SEL] Visit to Mt Wilson old iron collection

[Frank DeWitt]

Last Sunday My friend Fred Rister and I were the guests of Larry 
Evans for a great tour of the Mt Wilson old iron collection (Known to 
those outside the old engine community as the Mount Wilson 
Observatory East of Los Angeles CA .  I had told Larry ahead of time 
that Fred and I are interested in old iron and we make our living in 
the optics industry so he had Don Nicholson from the observatory 
there to show us around before we went to see the Fairbanks Morse 
engine / generator. 
http://astronomyoutreach.net/astronomers.d/nicholson.d/index.html

Much of the Observatory Including Both the 60 in and the 100 in 
mirror telescopes were installed before 1917 so the mountain is full 
of old iron to generate electricity (110 V DC) and to move the 
telescopes to track the stars, and to open and close the shutters and 
rotate the dome ETC.  Even maintenance items like cranes are purpose 
built to work in the dome top buildings and are original. The whole 
mountain is a toy box for any one who likes old iron.

The place runs on DC because they had to make there own power and 
they didn't want exhaust or vibration at night so they generated DC 
during the day and used it at night.  There are to many motors to 
change them all out and they still work so they stay.  What a delight.

I have posted some pix of motors and panels and a clock work that 
moved the telescope to track the stars.  I also posted a few shots of 
a Worm wheel because it impressed me, not only for it's size, but 
because of the story.  It had to be brought up the mountain in two 
parts. Therefor, it was assembled on site and then the teeth were cut 
in place.  Each thing you look at is even more impressive when you 
realize that they were made in 190? and they were brought up the 
mountain on a dirt path.

There are already good pictures on these sites.
http://www.mtwilson.edu/index.php
http://www.mwoa.org/gallery.html  Don't miss this one.

http://www.oldengine.org/members/levans/  Larry and Ken's site. Very Good.
http://oldengine.org/members/levans/mtwilsonfm/

http://physics1.usc.edu/solar/hist_images.html

And more.

My pictures are at http://lbpinc.com/Mt-wilson.html  Warning, LARGE files

A great old Iron day.  My thanks to Larry Evans and Don Nicholson

Frank





  Frank DeWitt

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