page_title: Nicholas Mayall
section_title: Lick Observatory
hierarchical_section_title: Nicholas Mayall / Lick Observatory
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the Lick Observatory, the main building and the large dome housing the 36-inch James Lick telescope
context_page_description: Nicholas Ulrich Mayall was an American observational astronomer. After obtaining his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, Mayall worked at the Lick Observatory, where he remained from 1934 to 1960, except for a brief period at MIT's Radiation Laboratory during World War II.
  During his time at Lick, Mayall contributed to astronomical knowledge of nebulae, supernovae, spiral galaxy internal motions, the redshifts of galaxies, and the origin, age, and size of the Universe. He played a significant role in the planning and construction of Lick's 120-inch reflector, which represented a major improvement over its earlier 36-inch telescope.
  From 1960, Mayall spent 11 years as director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory until his retirement in 1971. Under his leadership KPNO, and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, developed into two of the world's top research observatories, equipped with premier telescopes. Mayall was responsible for the construction of the 4-meter Kitt Peak reflector, which was named after him. When Mayall died in 1993, his ashes were spread high on an empty ridge of Kitt Peak.
context_section_description: While Mayall hoped to join the Mount Wilson team upon earning his doctorate, there were no openings during the Great Depression.  Instead, he began his career at Lick, which was afforded by the number two janitor resigning and Mayall being given a one-year position as observing assistant with janitorial duties limited to maintaining the darkrooms and keeping instrument rooms clean.  The following year, one of the senior astronomers joined the Berkeley department and his salary was split between Mayall and another young astronomer, Arthur Bambridge Wyse.
  On June 30, 1934, Mayall married Kathleen (Kay) Boxall from Los Angeles, who he had met during his two years in Pasadena.  They lived in a small apartment that was part of the little astronomy village on the Mount Hamilton summit, where all Lick astronomers resided at that time.
  Using his newly built spectrograph, Mayall was the first to determine the radial velocities of many knots of gas in the Crab Nebula. Using these data and the previously published angular rate of expansion of the nebula, he was able to estimate its distance.  Consequently, he became the first person to recognize and demonstrate that the Crab Nebula was the remnant of a supernova observed and recorded in 1054 (SN 1054), rather than a classical nova.  Walter Baade was instrumental in stimulating and counseling Mayall after around 1939, taking on the role previously filled by Hubble.
  In 1941, together with Arthur Wyse and Lawrence Aller, Mayall studied the rotation of nearby galaxies and found that there was much matter that was too faint to be observed, but which could be detected by way of its gravitational effect.  He spent about three years until 1942 researching 50 Milky Way globular clusters, and found the Milky Way had about one half of the mass previously supposed.
  While at the Lick Observatory, Mayall collaborated on a 20-year project with astronomers at Mount Palomar and Mount Wilson on the Big Bang theory of the beginning of the Universe.  Together with Milton L. Humason and Allan R. Sandage, he wrote a 1956 paper concluding that the age of the Universe was six billion years (three times the prior estimate, and about half the modern value), and its size three times larger than thought.
caption: The main Lick Observatory building and the South (large) Dome that houses the south telescope
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