This road is such a challenge. It's not only the height, it's the twists and turns.

These are real hairpin turns that are hard to get around.

And I know I'm complaining about the drive, but I have to think that Hale walked up here.

I'm driving from Pasadena, California, up to the Mount Wilson Observatory. This place has been a Mecca for astronomers since the early 20th century, truly a magic

mountaintop built by the legendary George Ellery Hale.

A big crowd is gathering to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1868.

Oh, there it is. There are the towers. I see one of the big telescope domes and the tall solar towers with

their tiny domes up top. Oh, I can see both domes now, the whole thing.

Hale did more for astronomy than anyone who's ever lived.

And the world's leading astronomers speak his name with reverence. This is Wendy Friedman. He was the

individual who was responsible for building the telescopes at Mount

Wilson and for starting the astronomy part of the

Carnegie Institution of Washington. Remarkable man. Here's Leon Golub.

When I first entered solar physics, one of the people I was working with, someone older, said,

you're going to have to work very hard to do something new that Hale didn't do 60 years ago and I thought it was a joke but then

as time went on I found out that it was just the plain truth.

Growing up in Southern California, and in fact, in the shadow of Mount Wilson Observatory,

Edward Rhodes, every time we'd go toward Pasadena, you could look up and see the tops of the solar towers.

And so to me, it was a lifelong dream to become an astronomer.

Now it gives me great pleasure to introduce author Davis Sobel. Davis-Souvel. I'm very honored to be the person giving the talk about Hale.

The reason I was invited is that I invented this term astronomical impresario.

It's pretty good, you know.

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