La Silla

European Southern Observatory's Early Telescopes

After the Second World War the most immediate priority in western Europe was to feed and house its people aided by the American Marshall Plan. Once that problem had largely been solved these western European countries began to consider how to ensure that such a European conflict could not happen again. One way of doing this was to work together in joint ventures. On the scientific side the first such initiative was in the field of nuclear physics which eventually resulted in the establishment of CERN in 1953.(1)

In the same year Walter Baade of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories had been invited by Jan Oort to spend two months at the Leiden Observatory. During his visit Baade suggested that it would be a good idea if European astronomers considered establishing a joint European observatory. At that time the largest optical telescopes were in the northern hemisphere so it would be best if the suggested new observatory were built in southerly latitudes. A southern observatory would also be beneficial as the Magellanic Clouds and the central region of the Milky Way were best observed from well south of the equator. Baade suggested that the observatory's main instruments should be a 120 inch (3 m) reflector similar to that of the Lick Observatory and a 48 inch (1.2 m) Schmidt like that on Mount Palomar (see Section 1.2).(2) Using these existing designs as a basis should enable the European versions to be built more quickly and cheaply than if the telescopes had to be designed from scratch. Baade's idea was discussed shortly afterwards by a group of European astronomers who had gathered at Groningen, in the Netherlands, in June 1953 for a conference on galactic research. The meeting concluded that a meridian circle should be added to Baade's proposed instrument complement to undertake much-needed astrometric work in the southern hemisphere.

At the time South Africa was the envisaged location of the observatory in view of its known good observational conditions and the fact that a number of European countries already owned or used observational facilities there.