Giant Telescopes by W. Patrick McCray, Harvard University Press, £29.95/$45, ISBN 0674011473 Reviewed by Hazel Muir
“NEVER before has so much glass and metal been pointed at the night sky,” says Patrick McCray, a historian from the University of California, as he begins his insightful history of how ground-based telescopes have evolved and flourished over the past 50 years. His tale begins with the 200-inch Hale telescope at California’s Palomar Mountain, built in 1948, and ends with the twin 8-metre Gemini telescopes on mountains in Chile and Hawaii, completed in 2002.
Far from being relegated to third-class status by orbiting…
