Science Art: Nebulae in the Pleiades, by the Yerkes Observatory


NGS Picture ID:603592
Click to embiggen

This is an old photograph taken through the largest refracting telescope (no mirrors, just a really big lens) in the world, the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.

Edwin Hubble, Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan all looked at the sky through the observatory’s huge lenses. This image was taken sometime before 1919, when it appeared in National Geographic magazine. The telescope is still being used today.

[via National Geographic]