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Is it, in fact, larger than Lick Observatory's? I looked through that in 2003 or so. > To her surprise, the telescope and its 60-foot-long metal tube were stil

Is it, in fact, larger than Lick Observatory's? I looked through that in 2003 or so. > To her surprise, the telescope and its 60-foot-long metal tube were still balanced enough that they could be moved with just her hands. However, while the telescope was operational, it was difficult and stiff to move. Over the first month, Dr. Bauer had to determine whether the stiffness was due to a ground-down gear and figure out all the places the telescope needed to be greased and oiled. I know Lick's can be moved by one person, by hand.

tesseract 3y ago
The key dimension for refracting astronomical telescopes is the diameter of the primary lens, which is 36 inches at Lick and 40 inches at Yerkes. However, my understanding is that the Yerkes lens has suffered cracks around its perimeter and the telescope has been stopped down with baffles to mitigate the optical problems these cracks would otherwise cause, such that presently the Lick telescope has a larger clear aperture.