34 ASTRONOMY • MARCH 2020
associations with the organization — he was deter-
mined to create his own telescope-building company.
But Hale and Adams had other ideas. Their
100-inch telescope would not be upstaged by any
newly designed creation, especially one by their
disgraced former associate. Hale used his position
as observatory director to set about ruining
Ritchey’s reputation.
Soon, Ritchey realized he would never again
work in any capacity in astronomy in the U.S. His
ego, his arrogance, and his willful insubordination
over the 100-inch had gotten him censured from
astronomical work in the country.A new start
Fortunately, Ritchey had friends in Europe. Five
years after leaving Mount Wilson, he sailed for
France at the invitation of Chrétien and the Paris
Observatory, who were planning a 104-inch tele-
scope. By this time, Chrétien was a professor at
the Institut d’Optique and beginning development
of the hypergonar lens system, which won him
an Academy Award of Merit at the 26th Academy
Awards after it was used to create the CinemaScope
widescreen film process. (He is the only astronomer
to win an Academy Award.)
The French astronomical community anxiously
awaited the arrival of the visionary optician and
instrument maker. On April 8, 1924 — about a
week after his arrival in Paris — Ritchey was
awarded the Janssen Medal by the French Academy
of Sciences for his work on astronomical instru-
ments. It was an auspicious beginning, but relations
soured from there.The Paris telescope’s benefactor, Assan Farid
Dina, thought the design should employ the same
paraboloidal primary mirror as its slightly smaller
cousin in California, while Chrétien (and others)
were eager to design it as the first large Ritchey-
Chrétien telescope. Inexplicably, after some delib-
eration, Ritchey decided on a 5- or 6-meter (197 to
236 inches) telescope, incorporating his newly pat-
ented cellular primary mirror design as a Ritchey-
Chrétien hyperboloid.
The telescope was never built. Long on vision,
ambition, and skill, but short on tact, charisma, and
charm, the 59-year-old Ritchey began slowly to
break down the welcome extended to him by the
French astronomical community. He never bothered
to learn French and failed as a project manager and
planner, bouncing from one position to the next as
his colleagues tried in vain to find a position that
suited his incredible talent, but would rein in his
budget-sapping ambition and perfectionism.
Both Ritchey and Chrétien attempted several
times to earn a contract to build a Ritchey-Chrétien
telescope, either in Europe or the U.S. But fears over
the effectiveness of the mirror configuration —
fomented as they were by Hale and others — and
Ritchey’s own beleaguered reputation scuttled these
attempts as larger and more reputable firms earned
contracts for proven telescope configurations.
It was the U.S. Naval Observatory that finally
gave Ritchey the opportunity to build a Ritchey-
Chrétien telescope sized to show off its finer attri-
butes. In 1930, Ritchey returned to the U.S.; soon
after, the Naval Observatory commissioned a
40-inch Ritchey-Chrétien ref lector by the agingABOVE: Comatic
aberration, or coma,
causes stars and
other objects at the
edge of a telescope’s
field to appear
distorted. ASTRONOMY:
ROEN KELLY
INSET: This image,
taken with an f/3.9
Newtonian telescope,
shows coma affecting
a star (left), as well as
the same star after
correction with a
Baader Rowe Coma
Corrector (RCC).
Similarly, Ritchey’s
and Chrétien’s “new
curves” eliminated
coma in Cassegrain
telescopes by using
hyperbolic primary
and secondary
mirrors. RAWASTRODATA
(WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
RIGHT: Ritchey
completed a 40-inch
Ritchey-Chrétien
telescope — the
largest built during his
lifetime — for the U.S.
Naval Observatory
(USNO) in 1934. The
telescope went into
service the following
year. Initially installed
in Washington, D.C.,
the telescope now
resides at the USNO’s
Flagstaff, Arizona,
location. P. SHANKLAND
Without RCC With RCC