Edwin Hubble

Edwin Hubble sits at the 100-inch Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in California, eye to the instrument and one hand on a control wheel. This is the telescope he used to show that some of the faint nebulae are galaxies far beyond the Milky Way, and then, working with Milton Humason, to find that more distant galaxies are moving away faster, the observation behind the expanding universe. Nights like this meant hours of keeping the giant tube locked on one patch of sky while a photographic plate slowly gathered light.