The story of building 200” reflective mirror telescope at Corning

 The story was noted on August 17 while my family was at Ithaca, New York.  The telescope was conceptualized by a famed astronomer, George Hale in 1928 who wished to build the largest telescope to be situated at Palomar Mountain.   He commissioned Corning to build the telescope with the Corning Pyrex technology.  Corning engineer, Mr. George McCauley took the challenge.  One great challenge was not to break the mirror during the cooling.  With this gigantic glass mirror, avoiding cracks during cooling was critical.  At Corning, they first build a honeycomb-like mold so that the mirror could be annealed slowly and uniformly.  Their first attempt was not successful.  In the 2nd attempt, the mirror was annealed for a year.  The mirror was then transported to Palomar, California in a train with a train speed of 25 miles/hr.  The mirror was then installed at Palomar, CA in 1948.