Are those old telescopes still useful? Isn there new technology that makes newer telescopes better?
The two largest domes you see at Mount Wilson house telescopes that were completed in the early part of the twentieth century. Though they were the largest of their kind at the time, larger telescopes have been built in the intervening years. The telescopes at Mount Wilson continue to be very productive scientific instruments, however. While different materials and technologies are used in current telescope designs and construction, the early telescopes at Mount Wilson were designed to perform the same function as most of today’s new telescopes — to gather the light from distant objects and present it to the science instruments that analyze that light. Despite looking their age to the casual observer, these telescopes continue to do the job they were designed for, and new science instruments compliment the old workhorses to keep them at the forefront of astronomical research. The massively built 60-inch and 100-inch reflectors — completed in 1908 and 1917, respectively — were fashio
