An Acre of Glass: A History and Forecast of the Telescope (review)

The second half of the twentieth century saw an explosion of powerful new technologies that radically expanded our view of the astronomical universe and forced scientists to develop new ideas about what's way out there and what happened billions of years ago. J. B. Zirker combines a solid command of these technologies and theories with direct experience of the most relevant social, political, and personal factors involved. He is also a good writer and knows how to tell a good story. The result is a wonderfully accessible introduction to the field.

After explaining radio, X-ray, gamma-ray, and infrared technologies that enable us to "see" beyond the visible spectrum, Zirker recounts the formation of great astronomical centers that permit astronomers from various universities, or even from different countries, to work together. One such is the National Solar Observatory that encompasses the facilities at Kitt Peak in Arizona and at Sacramento Peak in New Mexico, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) and is funded by the National Science Foundation, of which Zirker is a former director.

Chapter 5 concerns the Hubble Space Telescope. Chapter 6 focuses on Jerry Nelson, the physicist at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory who argued for combining many small glass segments into a very large telescope mirror. The 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii, the first major instrument of this sort, achieved first light in 1992. Since it sits atop Mauna Kea, which is 4,300 meters above sea level, observing with this telescope is done from a remote station where the air is less thin. Chapter 7 focuses on Roger Angel, the University of Arizona astronomer who found that by spinning the mold while the glass was still molten he could produce large parabolic mirrors with relative efficiency and low cost. The final three chapters concern a number of other amazing technologies, some of which are still on the drawing boards. The opening historical chapters of this book—which describe astronomers as great or brilliant, instrument makers as skillful, and patrons as wealthy—are best ignored.