Plum Park Press
George Ellery Hale founded the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1904, and as its first director he supervised the construction of the observatory and its centerpiece, the 100-inch Hooker telescope, the largest telescope in the world at the time. The new telescope saw "first light" in 1917, and in 1922 Hale published THE NEW HEAVENS. This month's Plum Park Press edition is a miniature version of this book, which describes the construction of the observatory and the telescope, and its first uses in exploring the sky in greater detail than ever before.
The book is bound in glossy black faux leather, in which silver-filled perforations represent the main stars in the constellation of Orion. Endpapers show a photograph of the great nebula in Andromeda.
The book contains numerous photographs of the observatory and the telescope during their construction, and many of astronomical objects taken using the telescope (including the constellation of Orion).
The book consists of 180 pages of text, plus 80 pages of illustrations on glossy paper. It has overall dimensions of 74 x 54 x 18 mm (2-15/16 x 2-1/8 x 3/4 inches). The Plum Park Press miniature edition of Hale's THE NEW HEAVENS consists of 20 copies. The price is $45 each, plus $5 for shipping and handling.
