It's not that Remington Stone takes his work home with him every night. His home just happens to be at work. The Mount Hamilton operations director is one of about 25 UC employees who live with their families in the shadows of Lick Observatory, home to 10 of the astronomy world's most famous – and busiest - telescopes.
Built for the University of California by an eccentric 19th century real estate mogul, the 120-year-old Lick Observatory hosts a steady stream of visiting astronomers who live on the premises, sleeping by day and logging research hours with the great telescopes by night. In addition, the top of Mount Hamilton has a permanent population of about 40. They include research astronomers, telescope technicians, maintenance workers and gift shop clerks, plus their family members. They rent from the university the vintage cottages and apartments built decades ago around the observatory's compound of gleaming white telescope domes.
"There are two categories of people who get hired on," says Stone. "One stays a long time. The other leaves in a year."
Stone belongs to the first category: He has been living on the mountain for 40 years.
Lick Observatory lies 14 miles east of downtown San Jose at a height of 4,200 feet. For optimal stargazing, observatories need to be located away from city lights and atmospheric pollution. When it opened in 1888, Lick Observatory was the first mountaintop observatory in the world. To reach it visitors must navigate a steep, narrow road that winds around the mountainside like a wet spaghetti noodle. Although 30,000 visitors a year make the trek, for the most part the community living there is isolated. They can see Bay Area civilization - spread out in majestic views below -but it takes more than an hour to drive to it.
Stone, a former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot, was living in Big Sur in 1968 when he heard about a new University of California campus that had opened in Santa Cruz. He went to campus to look for a job. UC Santa Cruz had become the home base for the University of California Observatories, including Lick Observatory, which had previously been a stand-alone UC astronomy center. The observatory offices were in the same trailer as the campus employment office. When Stone got to the trailer, he went in the wrong door. That's how he landed his first job at Mount Hamilton as a telescope operator.
"I had always wanted the opportunity to look through a really big telescope, so I felt opportunity was knocking," he says. "I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in chance."
Stone took a chance on Lick, intending to leave in a year or so, but he says he never has found anything more interesting to do. He became a research astronomer and now is in charge of operations.
After 40 years, he knows the observatory's every nook and crevice as well as he knows the night sky. Anyone lucky enough to have Stone show them around the place will get an earful of Lick history and a dose of astronomy limited only by their own imaginations.
"I think we have the highest intersection of interesting history and modern research," Stone says as he unlocks the door to the main public building, a monumental 19th century edifice that houses offices, exhibit space and classrooms. The domes built for the observatory's first two telescopes flank its high-ceilinged marble halls. A small dome on one side held a second-hand 12-inch telescope with a bigger dome on the opposite side to house the great Lick refractor.
At the time the Lick refractor "saw first light" in 1888, its 36-inch lens made it the biggest in the world. Nine years later the University of Chicago took that title away when its Yerkes Observatory opened with a 40-inch refractor telescope, a deliberate move to best Lick Observatory and proclaim itself the home of modern astrophysics. In the ensuing years, astronomers adopted the reflector telescope as their scope of choice. The reflectors use mirrors rather than glass lenses to gather light. That shift in technology left the Yerkes and Lick refractor telescopes perpetually locked in their No. 1 and 2 size rivalry. Stone still believes the Lick refractor outshines the one at the Yerkes.
"They don't have a dead guy," he says mysteriously.
The dead guy is James Lick, the wealthy land entrepreneur, once owner of Catalina Island and big chunks of San Francisco, who built the observatory on behalf of the University of California. Lick created a board of trustees to oversee the building of a state-of-the science observatory for the university. He died during the first year of construction. In 1887, 10 years after his death, the trustees moved Lick's body from a San Jose cemetery to the base of the great refractor.
Visitors can climb down a narrow stairway and peak under the floor where the telescope is installed to see a single light illuminating a plaque that reads simply, "Here lies the body of James Lick."
Over the decades, Lick Observatory has been a source of many important discoveries. In 1892, E.E. Barnard discovered Jupiter's fifth moon through the Lick refractor. Today, the refractor is used mainly for college and university astronomy classes and a NASA program for science teachers. The observatory's other telescopes continue to play significant roles in modern-day observing. Forty-nine of the first 50 new planets discovered around distant stars were found with Lick telescopes. Astronomers have the 120-inch Shane reflector telescope booked every night of the year except Christmas and New Year’s.
The public can visit Lick Observatory seven days a week during daylight hours. If you're wondering what an astronomer does at night on Mount Hamilton, summer is your only chance to find out. Beginning in June, the Summer Visitors Program offers six Friday evening events that include a history talk, astronomy lectures and telescope viewing. Space is limited, and $5 tickets are sold through a lottery.
Music of the Spheres gives another chance for a nighttime visit. Concerts are held on six Saturday nights in summer with proceeds benefiting the observatory. Tickets are priced from $30 to $150, and all tickets include the opportunity to look through a really big telescope.
For more information about Lick Observatory, visit www.ucolick.org/public/visitors.html
Donna Hemmila is editor of Our University.