{"id":348,"date":"2011-11-09T23:03:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T04:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/?p=348"},"modified":"2012-01-31T14:52:28","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T19:52:28","slug":"wallpaper-wednesday-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"Wallpaper Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"McCormick<\/a>

McCormick Observatory, University of Virginia<\/p><\/div>\n

Today’s wallpaper features McCormick Observatory, located on Mt. Jefferson on the campus of the University of Virginia. The observatory is named after Leander J. McCormick<\/a>, donor<\/a> of the 26-inch astrometric refractor<\/a>\u00a0still housed under the dome of the building.\u00a0Usually we see the names Warner & Swasey associated with the instruments (they designed the telescopes for the Kirkwood<\/a>, Lick<\/a>, University of Illinois<\/a>, Theodor Jacobsen<\/a>, and Yerkes<\/a> Observatories, amongst others), but at University of Virginia, they were charged with the design of the original observatory dome, a first for the duo.[1] The dome was manually operated, but the track system provided for such an ease of motion that Warner & Swasey immediately applied for a patent for their design.[2] Construction work began in 1882; the observatory was formally dedicated on April 13, 1885.<\/p>\n

In addition to the dome room, the original building included a wing that housed the calculating rooms and a bedroom. If you looked at the image above and thought that the building’s detailing looked more suited to a cathedral than an observatory, you would be right: the Medieval Renaissance windows and buttresses echo a similar motif used (more appropriately) on the University chapel.[3] The director’s house (now known as Alden House, or Observatory House #1) was also built in 1882, with additional funds supplied by McCormick.<\/p>\n

To download wallpaper (standard sizes) of the above image, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

[1] Paul B. Barringer, James M. Garnett, and Rosewell Page, Eds.,\u00a0University of Virginia: Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics <\/em>(New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1904): 9.<\/p>\n

[2] After searching the patent registry, I can only guess that they were trying to protect their design for the process of cutting teeth of gear wheels<\/a>, Patent No. 333, 488.<\/p>\n

[2] Richard Guy Wilson and Sarah A. Butler, University of Virginia: The Campus Guide<\/em>\u00a0(Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999): 144.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s wallpaper features McCormick Observatory, located on Mt. Jefferson on the campus of the University of Virginia. The observatory is named after Leander J. McCormick, donor of the 26-inch astrometric refractor\u00a0still housed under the dome of the building.\u00a0Usually we see the names Warner & Swasey associated with the instruments (they designed the telescopes for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observatories","category-wallpaper","category-warner-and-swasey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}